District 5 Candidates' Forum

[Jaxson]

I attended the candidates forum for the three candidates who seek to replace Betty Burney on the Duval County School Board.  I took notes during this town hall meeting in which attendees asked questions of the contenders.  I have been working on posting my notes this evening.  Here is the first part of my work...


In the race to represent District 5 on the Duval County School Board, the three candidates appeared to be a complex Venn diagram of common agreements and the occasional clash of viewpoints.
The introduction of the candidates presented the traits of three candidates who have all worked in the classroom in one form or another.
Pervalia Gaines-McIntosh began the round of introductions.  She comes from a long line of educators and has advocated for public education for at least a decade, including working at WJCT for five years.
Ms. Gaines-McIntosh also included organizational work as she “provided best practices to hundreds of international organizations.”
Gaines-McIntosh’s has served as a substitute teacher in Duval County Schools in addition to her work to rally support for William M. Raines Senior High School.
“I am passionate about public education and I am passionate about children,” she said.  This, she said, is because she has been ‘breathing education for ten years’ and wants to take her advocacy to the school board.
She believes that the “system is broken…We have to include the people in the decision-making process to work the design,” saying that, through empowering all stakeholders, “you gain a voice.”
She summed up her mission in a few words.
“If you are ready to reclaim education for the people, we need your vote.”
Next to speak, in alphabetical order, was Chris Guerrieri, a prolific writer who has published over 50 commentaries in The Florida Times-Union, Folio Weekly and other local publications. 
Starting his twelfth year as an educator this fall, Guerrieri says that being an educator gives him unique experience to know what works and does not work in the district. 
He elaborated by telling of how he idealistically participated on committees and how he took the traditional route of writing to administrators.  Discouraged by their lack of action, Guerrieri ramped up his efforts and began writing to the local media and creating his ‘Education Matters’ weblog.
“I am letting people know what is going on in this district,” he said, adding that one important aspect of his campaign was his listening to teachers and education support personnel.
Guerrieri agrees with Gaines-McIntosh that the public school system needs improvement but differs with her belief that the system is ‘broken.’
One deficiency of the system, in Guerrieri’s opinion, was that the school board is ‘more worried’ about numbers and appearances in seeking the data that make them look good. 
The final candidate, Dr. Constance Hall, had the most extensive experience of the three contenders.  She received her doctorate from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in Tallahassee.  She served for over three decades as a classroom teacher, resource teacher, principal and district administrator.  She currently mentors aspiring teachers.
Observing the social imbalances that occur in the county, Dr. Hall spoke of serving students who were dropped off at school by social workers instead of parents and then also seeing students dropped off at school in a “Rolls Royce.” 
“We have pockets of success,” she said, “but we also have struggles and challenges.”
She expressed her desire to ensure that success is all over the school district.
After the preliminaries, Scott Kim moderated the forum with questions from the audience.
The first question asked of the candidates what they thought were some of the opportunities and challenges that faced Duval County Public Schools and how they would address such issues.
Guerrieri focused on the need for more career education.  He said that there are over 6,000, or approximately five percent of the overall district enrollment,  students in career academies but that there should be at least 60,000 students in such programs. 
Regarding teachers, Guerrieri said that the school system has not been very concerned with “doing things the right way.” 
He wants to let “teachers be professionals and teach.”  This can be done by teaching students a work ethic and establishing consequences for student discipline problems.
Dr. Hall said that this is a school system that has a wealth of data. 
“There is a plethora of data,” she said, the challenge, in her opinion, was that administrators and teachers use the data appropriately to ensure student success.
“We have a teaching force that has the desire and passion for teaching.  The challenge is tailoring targeted professional development to help teachers meet daily challenges.”
Gaines-McIntosh said that this is an opportunity to focus on teachers, students and all stakeholders in the education community. 
Pointing to the work done on the classroom level, “We need to appreciate our educators for their work, and it starts with the superintendent,” said Gaines-McIntosh.
Once on the school board, she said that she would make sure that she communicated with the superintendent of schools to improve teacher morale.
The next question was about how the candidates viewed the role of the school board in its governance role in relation to the administrative function of the superintendent.
Dr. Hall said, “We have one employee and that is the superintendent.  We will hold the superintendent accountable.  It has go beyond the superintendent where he is holding people accountable as well.  We will ask the appropriate questions to strengthen transparency.”
Ultimately, she said that she would “move forward with building a world class school system in Jacksonville, Florida.”
The superintendent, said Gaines-McIntosh, needs “to make sure that all stakeholders are working collaboratively together.”
Such cooperation, she said, would “bring back the strong passion and strong love that our community had in public education.”
With community support, Gaines-McIntosh said that the stakeholders have to do something in order for the system to be successful.
“We need them as much as they need us.  I want the people to know that we don’t have public education without you.”
Guerrieri’s concerns were with creating a safe and civil atmosphere for learning.
“We don’t let teachers discipline kids and we don’t let teachers teach kids,” he said.
His key frustration came from compiling a 500-page data notebook that barely attracted the attention of the administrator who was charged with evaluating him.
Guerrieri said that he was especially concerned with teachers who “need time at home so they can feed their kids.”
Guerrieri also challenged the school board to have a stronger presence in the schools without resorting to “gotcha” tactics.  He was weary of school officials who sat in their offices and “hoped for the best.”
A common community complaint with schools was the lack of vocational education in an age of preparing all students for college.  This was the basis for the third question of the evening that asked the trio what they believed about the benefits of vocational programs for students.
Gaines-McIntosh said that it was a priority to “train children to be productive and to be citizens.  She bemoaned the force feeding of children “an education that they do not want.” 
She said that the current mindset of college preparation and rigor was affording students the chance to be treated as people with whom teachers should be allowed to meet their needs in professional relationships that recognize the abilities and gifts of each child.
“The state is making teachers teach to a test,” she said, “We want to change education into the future and we have got to change the model.”
“Students first” was her mantra.
Guerrieri couched his answer in a question.  He rhetorically asked of those in attendance what was the difference between the top student at Stanton College Preparatory High School and the average student at Raines.  Throwing a curveball to the crowd, he said that there was no difference between the Blue Devil and the Viking, explaining that both students needed to take the same exact tests to earn their diploma.  The difference, however, lay in the ability of teachers to differentiate instruction to ensure that both students made the grade.
“We have to prepare these kids to be productive citizens,” he said.
Dr. Hall took a more pragmatic approach to the existence of career academies, acknowledging their necessity, but making it clear that the top priority was that these same students be proficient in reading and math before they branch out into a career track.
Dr. Hall told of students who were eleven years old and in the second grade and other students who were far below grade level in literacy.
“To become a proficient electrician,” said Dr. Hall, “ we have to buckle up and do a better job of teaching reading.”

More to come...

[Jaxson]

I have met with Dr. Hall and I have found her to be an eloquent voice of reason and experience.  She made the case that she would be a steady hand in a time of transition.

[Jaxson]

Part Two...


The moderator shifted the conversation to who is ultimately responsible for student success.
Guerrieri said that teachers, parents and students all play a vital role in student’s performance.  He said that he was tired of parents taking all of the blame when students fail to make the grade.
“As a classroom teacher, I have to control what I can control.  Duval County needs to do a better job of controlling what is in their schools,” he said, “When we do not discipline our students, we are doing our schools a disservice.”
Through serving their students better, Guerrieri said that the schools could be a “bright spot where they do get what they need.”
Dr. Hall concurred with Guerrieri’s sentiment, saying that “we are all accountable for student success.  Parents are sending the best that they have when they send their children to our school.”
She said that it is up to the school district to help the schools because “that is where the rubber hits the road.”  She added that “community has to come together and connect the dots.  We have to go to them to provide that support.”
Gaines-McIntosh, through her experience as a substitute teacher learned that “teachers hands are tied and are working tirelessly every day to make sure that students receive a quality education.”
She wants to see a school system where everyone is working collaboratively.
She denounced what she called was an insular attitude by people about the welfare of all children. 
“All of our children need us,” she said, saying that 35 percent of the students at the challenged schools where she worked come from homes with foster parents or adults other than their biological parents.

The most controversial aspect of the discussion came in the form of a question that seemed to be designed to address the recent removal of Raines High School’s principal, George Maxey, for his role in the cover up of a theft that took place during a football game.
Dr. Hall said plainly that if a principal does something unethical, that it was grounds for removal.
“Principals are role models,” she said, pointing to principals as role models for teachers and students alike.
Gaines-McIntosh said that principals should be fired if “they violate the law…if they violate children…if they violate the code of ethics as it relates to administrators.” 
If they are not doing what’s best for children, she said, “then we want them out.”
She said that disciplinary actions should be equal across the board for administrators and teachers.
Guerrieri tacked the question head on, saying that this question was obviously about the Maxey case. 
“He got a raw deal,” Guerrieri said, “ He thought that he was doing what the school system wanted him to do” by attempting to handle the matter in-house and keep it out of the eyes of the local media.
Guerrieri then widened his perspective to how administrators tend to be creatures of politics.
“Who you know determines your position rather than your ability,” he said, questioning the wisdom behind having an assistant principal who has only three years of classroom experience but being promoted to an administrative position through the power of being related to someone “downtown.”
Speaking of disciplinary action, Kim asked the participants what they would do about student discipline.
Dr. Hall began by saying that students are not taking disciplinary referrals seriously.  She called for a comprehensive review of student discipline that has not been done in at least five years. 
“Students tend to rebel and show the teacher who runs the class,” she said, explaining how a review of student discipline and greater support from downtown would help teachers reclaim the learning process.
Guerrieri proposed that, to combat the instructional time lost to classroom management issues, students receive stricter penalties for violating the Code of Conduct.
After four disciplinary referrals, he recommends that students be indefinitely suspended from school until their parent or guardian meets with the school to devise a plan to improve their classroom behavior.   And after five referrals, he proposes that schools require parents to shadow their children in the classroom as a requisite to such frequent offenders returning to the classroom.
According to studies, Guerrieri said that up to 19 days out of every school year are lost to each student who disrupts the learning process.
Gaines-McIntosh said that teachers need more professional development and this includes the popular CHAMPS program that is part of the Safe and Civil Schools program created by Randy Sprick.
She said that it is important that teachers be trained “with fidelity” in the CHAMPS classroom management system.
Like students being sent to the dean’s office, schools face sanctions from the state for failing to meet the standards.  The next question asked the candidates what they felt about the potential closure of schools targeted for intervention by the state.
“We need to do what we can do to improve these schools,” said Guerrieri.  He said that the existing choices for such challenged schools are all terrible, including the handing of school operations to a private firm or converting them to charter schools. 
Furthermore, Guerrieri took issue with the state’s Opportunity Scholarship program, saying that they simply shuffle students around to the detriment of all schools.  He pointed to Ed White High School, school where he taught ESE.  The school grade dropped to an F, he said, after Opportunity Scholarship students began attending Ed White.  Guerrieri said that the scholarships do not address the root causes of such student’s deficiencies.
Dr. Hall agreed on the matter of closing schools, saying that it should not be an option. 
“It makes me very heartbroken,” she said, “When we are fighting for schools, we are fighting for children.  It hurts my heart that we are in this predicament. “
It goes back, she said, to schools that are listed in the top 100 in the nation and having a high school that is at “rock bottom” in the state.
Gaines-McIntosh told the audience about her travels to Tampa to advocate for Raines, Ribault and Jackson High Schools as well as what was then North Shore K-8 School.   
She said that advocates like her are currently shut out of having real conversations with the school board.
“They close the door for sheep, but open the door to the wolves,” she said, “The pretend to listen only when they don’t want to.  They need to listen.”

[Jaxson]

I apologize for not posting much as of late.  I am on the road in Michigan and Ohio.  In lieu of a Part 3 in my series, I am posting a more 'Reader's Digest' version of my notes in sections to comply with the 20,000 character limit.  District 5 School Board Election

Hopefuls share their thoughts with Raines High School forum
By John Louis Meeks, Jr.

In the race to represent District 5 on the Duval County School Board, the three candidates appeared to be a complex Venn diagram of common agreements and the occasional clash of viewpoints.
The introduction of the candidates presented the traits of three candidates who have all worked in the classroom in one form or another.
Pervalia Gaines-McIntosh began the round of introductions.  She comes from a long line of educators and has advocated for public education for at least a decade, including working at WJCT for five years.
Ms. Gaines-McIntosh also included organizational work as she “provided best practices to hundreds of international organizations.”
Gaines-McIntosh’s has served as a substitute teacher in Duval County Schools in addition to her work to rally support for William M. Raines Senior High School.
“I am passionate about public education and I am passionate about children,” she said.  This, she said, is because she has been ‘breathing education for ten years’ and wants to take her advocacy to the school board.
She believes that the “system is broken…We have to include the people in the decision-making process to work the design,” saying that, through empowering all stakeholders, “you gain a voice.”
She summed up her mission in a few words.
“If you are ready to reclaim education for the people, we need your vote.”
Next to speak, in alphabetical order, was Chris Guerrieri, a prolific writer who has published over 50 commentaries in The Florida Times-Union, Folio Weekly and other local publications.
Starting his twelfth year as an educator this fall, Guerrieri says that being an educator gives him unique experience to know what works and does not work in the district.
He elaborated by telling of how he idealistically participated on committees and how he took the traditional route of writing to administrators.  Discouraged by their lack of action, Guerrieri ramped up his efforts and began writing to the local media and creating his ‘Education Matters’ weblog.
To be continued...

[Jaxson]

“I am letting people know what is going on in this district,” he said, adding that one important aspect of his campaign was his listening to teachers and education support personnel.
Guerrieri agrees with Gaines-McIntosh that the public school system needs improvement but differs with her belief that the system is ‘broken.’
One deficiency of the system, in Guerrieri’s opinion, was that the school board is ‘more worried’ about numbers and appearances in seeking the data that make them look good.
The final candidate, Dr. Constance Hall, had the most extensive experience of the three contenders.  She received her doctorate from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in Tallahassee.  She served for over three decades as a classroom teacher, resource teacher, principal and district administrator.  She currently mentors aspiring teachers.
Observing the social imbalances that occur in the county, Dr. Hall spoke of serving students who were dropped off at school by social workers instead of parents and then also seeing students dropped off at school in a “Rolls Royce.”
“We have pockets of success,” she said, “but we also have struggles and challenges.”
She expressed her desire to ensure that success is all over the school district.
After the preliminaries, Scott Kim moderated the forum with questions from the audience.
The first question asked of the candidates what they thought were some of the opportunities and challenges that faced Duval County Public Schools and how they would address such issues.
Guerrieri focused on the need for more career education.  He said that there are over 6,000, or approximately five percent of the overall district enrollment,  students in career academies but that there should be at least 60,000 students in such programs.
Regarding teachers, Guerrieri said that the school system has not been very concerned with “doing things the right way.”
He wants to let “teachers be professionals and teach.”  This can be done by teaching students a work ethic and establishing consequences for student discipline problems.
Dr. Hall said that this is a school system that has a wealth of data.
“There is a plethora of data,” she said, the challenge, in her opinion, was that administrators and teachers use the data appropriately to ensure student success.
“We have a teaching force that has the desire and passion for teaching.  The challenge is tailoring targeted professional development to help teachers meet daily challenges.”
Gaines-McIntosh said that this is an opportunity to focus on teachers, students and all stakeholders in the education community.
Pointing to the work done on the classroom level, “We need to appreciate our educators for their work, and it starts with the superintendent,” said Gaines-McIntosh.
Once on the school board, she said that she would make sure that she communicated with the superintendent of schools to improve teacher morale.
The next question was about how the candidates viewed the role of the school board in its governance role in relation to the administrative function of the superintendent.
Dr. Hall said, “We have one employee and that is the superintendent.  We will hold the superintendent accountable.  It has go beyond the superintendent where he is holding people accountable as well.  We will ask the appropriate questions to strengthen transparency.”
Ultimately, she said that she would “move forward with building a world class school system in Jacksonville, Florida.”
The superintendent, said Gaines-McIntosh, needs “to make sure that all stakeholders are working collaboratively together.”
Such cooperation, she said, would “bring back the strong passion and strong love that our community had in public education.”
With community support, Gaines-McIntosh said that the stakeholders have to do something in order for the system to be successful.
“We need them as much as they need us.  I want the people to know that we don’t have public education without you.”
Guerrieri’s concerns were with creating a safe and civil atmosphere for learning.
“We don’t let teachers discipline kids and we don’t let teachers teach kids,” he said.
His key frustration came from compiling a 500-page data notebook that barely attracted the attention of the administrator who was charged with evaluating him.
Guerrieri said that he was especially concerned with teachers who “need time at home so they can feed their kids.”
Guerrieri also challenged the school board to have a stronger presence in the schools without resorting to “gotcha” tactics.  He was weary of school officials who sat in their offices and “hoped for the best.”
A common community complaint with schools was the lack of vocational education in an age of preparing all students for college.  This was the basis for the third question of the evening that asked the trio what they believed about the benefits of vocational programs for students.
Gaines-McIntosh said that it was a priority to “train children to be productive and to be citizens.  She bemoaned the force feeding of children “an education that they do not want.”
She said that the current mindset of college preparation and rigor was affording students the chance to be treated as people with whom teachers should be allowed to meet their needs in professional relationships that recognize the abilities and gifts of each child.
“The state is making teachers teach to a test,” she said, “We want to change education into the future and we have got to change the model.”
“Students first” was her mantra.
Guerrieri couched his answer in a question.  He rhetorically asked of those in attendance what was the difference between the top student at Stanton College Preparatory High School and the average student at Raines.  Throwing a curveball to the crowd, he said that there was no difference between the Blue Devil and the Viking, explaining that both students needed to take the same exact tests to earn their diploma.  The difference, however, lay in the ability of teachers to differentiate instruction to ensure that both students made the grade.
“We have to prepare these kids to be productive citizens,” he said.
Dr. Hall took a more pragmatic approach to the existence of career academies, acknowledging their necessity, but making it clear that the top priority was that these same students be proficient in reading and math before they branch out into a career track.
Dr. Hall told of students who were eleven years old and in the second grade and other students who were far below grade level in literacy.
“To become a proficient electrician,” said Dr. Hall, “we have to buckle up and do a better job of teaching reading.”
The moderator shifted the conversation to who is ultimately responsible for student success.
Guerrieri said that teachers, parents and students all play a vital role in student’s performance.  He said that he was tired of parents taking all of the blame when students fail to make the grade.
“As a classroom teacher, I have to control what I can control.  Duval County needs to do a better job of controlling what is in their schools,” he said, “When we do not discipline our students, we are doing our schools a disservice.”
Through serving their students better, Guerrieri said that the schools could be a “bright spot where they do get what they need.”
Dr. Hall concurred with Guerrieri’s sentiment, saying that “we are all accountable for student success.  Parents are sending the best that they have when they send their children to our school.”
She said that it is up to the school district to help the schools because “that is where the rubber hits the road.”  She added that “community has to come together and connect the dots.  We have to go to them to provide that support.”
Gaines-McIntosh, through her experience as a substitute teacher learned that “teachers hands are tied and are working tirelessly every day to make sure that students receive a quality education.”
She wants to see a school system where everyone is working collaboratively.
She denounced what she called was an insular attitude by people about the welfare of all children.
“All of our children need us,” she said, saying that 35 percent of the students at the challenged schools where she worked come from homes with foster parents or adults other than their biological parents.

The most controversial aspect of the discussion came in the form of a question that seemed to be designed to address the recent removal of Raines High School’s principal, George Maxey, for his role in the cover up of a theft that took place during a football game.
Dr. Hall said plainly that if a principal does something unethical, that it was grounds for removal.
“Principals are role models,” she said, pointing to principals as role models for teachers and students alike.
Gaines-McIntosh said that principals should be fired if “they violate the law…if they violate children…if they violate the code of ethics as it relates to administrators.”
If they are not doing what’s best for children, she said, “then we want them out.”
She said that disciplinary actions should be equal across the board for administrators and teachers.
Guerrieri tacked the question head on, saying that this question was obviously about the Maxey case.
“He got a raw deal,” Guerrieri said, “ He thought that he was doing what the school system wanted him to do” by attempting to handle the matter in-house and keep it out of the eyes of the local media.
Guerrieri then widened his perspective to how administrators tend to be creatures of politics.
“Who you know determines your position rather than your ability,” he said, questioning the wisdom behind having an assistant principal who has only three years of classroom experience but being promoted to an administrative position through the power of being related to someone “downtown.”
Speaking of disciplinary action, Kim asked the participants what they would do about student discipline.
Dr. Hall began by saying that students are not taking disciplinary referrals seriously.  She called for a comprehensive review of student discipline that has not been done in at least five years.
“Students tend to rebel and show the teacher who runs the class,” she said, explaining how a review of student discipline and greater support from downtown would help teachers reclaim the learning process.
Guerrieri proposed that, to combat the instructional time lost to classroom management issues, students receive stricter penalties for violating the Code of Conduct.
After four disciplinary referrals, he recommends that students be indefinitely suspended from school until their parent or guardian meets with the school to devise a plan to improve their classroom behavior.   And after five referrals, he proposes that schools require parents to shadow their children in the classroom as a requisite to such frequent offenders returning to the classroom.
According to studies, Guerrieri said that up to 19 days out of every school year are lost to each student who disrupts the learning process.
Gaines-McIntosh said that teachers need more professional development and this includes the popular CHAMPS program that is part of the Safe and Civil Schools program created by Randy Sprick.
She said that it is important that teachers be trained “with fidelity” in the CHAMPS classroom management system.
Like students being sent to the dean’s office, schools face sanctions from the state for failing to meet the standards.  The next question asked the candidates what they felt about the potential closure of schools targeted for intervention by the state.
“We need to do what we can do to improve these schools,” said Guerrieri.  He said that the existing choices for such challenged schools are all terrible, including the handing of school operations to a private firm or converting them to charter schools.
Furthermore, Guerrieri took issue with the state’s Opportunity Scholarship program, saying that they simply shuffle students around to the detriment of all schools.  He pointed to Ed White High School, school where he taught ESE.  The school grade dropped to an F, he said, after Opportunity Scholarship students began attending Ed White.  Guerrieri said that the scholarships do not address the root causes of such student’s deficiencies.
Dr. Hall agreed on the matter of closing schools, saying that it should not be an option.
“It makes me very heartbroken,” she said, “When we are fighting for schools, we are fighting for children.  It hurts my heart that we are in this predicament. “
It goes back, she said, to schools that are listed in the top 100 in the nation and having a high school that is at “rock bottom” in the state.
Gaines-McIntosh told the audience about her travels to Tampa to advocate for Raines, Ribault and Jackson High Schools as well as what was then North Shore K-8 School.   
She said that advocates like her are currently shut out of having real conversations with the school board.
“They close the door for sheep, but open the door to the wolves,” she said, “The pretend to listen only when they don’t want to.  They need to listen.”
Because the option of charter schools hangs over the heads of intervene schools such as schools in District 5, Kim asked the candidates to tell where they stand on the relationship between traditional public schools and the charter schools.
Dr. Hall said that she believes in educational options not because students were somehow failing, but because she wanted parents to have a choice in the education of their children.
“It goes back to having quality schools across the district,” she said.
Gaines-McIntosh said that she would never take away the rights of parents to choose the right school for their children, but said that she continues to be a “proponent for traditional public schools” and that she would be a “hard sell” on approving any new charter schools.
She said that the current public school system is beneficial to the community in that it saves parents time and money, it helps property values, and it creates an internal support system for the community.
“You invest in the system and the system invests back in you,” she said, “If we strengthen our neighborhood schools, we will see improvement in public education.  We lose the value in public education if we go to choice, because we cannot choose who we teach.”
Guerrieri spoke of his education blog in which he wrote of the state already having a say in the management of Jackson High School, down to the dictating of word walls and extensive lesson plans that can be as much as two pages for one day of instruction.
“We have to improve what we can improve and manage what we can manage,” he said, emphasizing that charter schools would work if parents and teachers had a better way of doing things for their students.  Instead, he said that charter schools became more focused on profits in an atmosphere where parents already have existing choices in public, private, parochial, charter and home schools.
He said that the proponents of school choice are actually talking about privatization, not real school reform.
His disappointment also was born from how teachers are included in the process of improving learning for students.  He said that, of the 45 community leaders asked for input from the United Way, only two were actively teaching in the classroom at the time.
With regards to the state mandates that drive education policy in Duval County, the candidates were next asked how they would view more pushback from the school board against unpopular mandates from Tallahassee.
“The pendulum is switching back,” he said, saying that community reaction to recent state errors was opening people’s eyes to state mismanagement.
“We have avenues to fight against the rules,” he said.
Dr. Hall illustrated her vision against the backdrop of state policy.
“We wait for the rules to change and then we become reactionary,” she said, “It doesn’t matter what the state says because our students have been prepared and they will achieve” if the schools take more proactive action to meet the standards.
She said that this could be possible if the school board establishes common benchmarks with successful school districts around the state.
Gaines-McIntosh said that it is essential that “we take ownership of our schools and stop allowing the state to mandate meetings.  That’s when we will be in the driver’s seat.”
She said that the state has been treating school districts such as Duval like “we are on puppet strings.”
“…We can take back control and let our students know we are fighting for you,” she said.
The three candidates had the chance to distinguish themselves with the next question.  Kim asked how they would challenge the status quo so the people “can believe in the school board again.”
Guerrieri opened by saying, jokingly, that he would do the opposite of whatever the school board is currently doing.
Saying that the incumbent members insist on having unanimous decisions and meet in private too often, he expressed his desire for more transparency in how the board leads, including the requirement that all school board votes be taken on camera and in public.
He said that another difference between himself and the school board is that he would communicate schools’ successes with the community and would celebrate them more often.
We should “celebrate our successes and not run away from our needs,” he said.
Dr. Hall said that awareness is the key to a functioning school board.  She said that she would attend community meetings to gauge constituent feelings.
“I would make sure that we come together…in a transparent manner,” she said, “One person cannot be there and represent you alone.  We have to work together.”
Gaines-McIntosh said that she would leave the school board building on 1701 Prudential Drive to connect with the school system.
“If we don’t start with the people, we fail the public education system,” she said, “They don’t trust us.  I am willing to take on the issues.  The people don’t trust the system.”
“We have to reach out and extend our hand into the community,” she said, “I start in the community and I end in the community because that is what I believe public schools are all about.”
When asked what they thought about the foundations of curriculum and ensuring that new ideas are based in research and data, the candidates differed in their approaches.
Gaines-McIntosh said that schools have not had the chance to see what works because the system has been changing curriculum so often.
To be continued...

[Jaxson]

“We need to stick with Common Core [standards] for the long term and tie our benchmarks and allow our teachers the autonomy to teach.  We need to go back to teaching and learning.”
Guerrieri  said that the school board vetoed recommendations made by experts and leave teachers questioning why they have to teach reading and math a certain way.
Duval County, he said, needs to have educators in charge of education “because they have the classroom experience.”
He said that the funding for programs is also questionable because “we are not using our funds in the proper fashion.”
One example, he said, was giving $5,000 to teach at challenged school where they are already teaching.  He said that, instead of “bribing” him to teach, more money could have been spent on resources â€" as much as $900,000 per school.
Dr. Hall said that sound decisions can be made based on existing research.
“We can ask the appropriate questions regarding the curriculum for selection,” she said, adding that it was important to be knowledgeable enough to make sure that the next superintendent has the “right people.”
The superintendent selection process was part of the discussion as Kim asked the candidates what they felt about the current school board choosing the next person to lead Duval County’s public schools.
Guerrieri flatly said, “I think it is going to be a terrible idea,” explaining that as many as four of the incumbents could be lame ducks making a choice for incoming members.
He said that the process could have been timed better and that the current process fails to bring into consideration that the superintendent of schools has been dictating to the school board instead of acknowledging his role as their appointee.
Dr. Hall took a position opposite to Guerrieri.  She said that she was “comfortable” with the school board making such a decision.
“We have to be focused on our students and their academic achievement,” she said.
Gaines-McIntosh disagreed with Dr. Hall, saying that the past track record of hiring superintendents was a poor indicator of how the current process would proceed.
She said that the lack of community involvement did not necessarily indicate that the public was not interested in how the school board conducted its business in the selection of the next schools chief.
She said that the community was “disheartened” by a system that has already been perceived to be stacking the deck in their own favor.
“That is one of the reasons why I am running; we need to have a board that is community-focused,” she said.
One fault of the school board, Gaines-McIntosh said, was that the envisioning process was designed to exclude the community.
“Why did we need the community?” she said, saying that the stakeholders should have been brought into the equation from the beginning.
“It is the community that is going to have to live with that decision.”
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