By John Meeks
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.
“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 – 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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