Latest / Rick Outzen: (we don’t) color on the dog / What's SAZAC?
Transcript
- Rick Outzen: I'm Rick Altson, and this is Rick's blog live. ZASAC. SAZAC. I gotta try to get that right. That's the committee that the school board formed back in July. It's a student, let me get the name right, is a student attendant zone advisory committee. They had their first meeting on September 24th. Their job, their mission is to right-size the school district. They selected their chairman, it is Walker Wilson. Walker, thank you for coming on the show. You know, based on your research and and what you've watched with the school district going into the meeting, ⁓ what was the reason for doing this committee now? They don't do it every year. Walker Wilson: So, Right. Yeah, so I mean I think you've seen the school district's student population decline over the past five to six years, ⁓ to I think the tune of around seven thousand students. Rick Outzen: Eight hundred this seven ninety nine this year. Walker Wilson: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So and you're talking about that's probably right at twenty percent of their students. ⁓ they've lost to either voucher programs, homeschooling, ⁓ private school, or or just simply moved out of the area. And so my understanding of what, you know, I had researched and seen online about SAZAC committee is you they look at the school system holistically, ⁓ you know, see if there's schools that need to be combined. Do you look at you know, bringing in a K through eight program to help support the school ⁓ so you have more students in a in a building, ⁓ you know, where you eventually have to close the school down and move those students elsewhere and redistrict them. Do you bring in ⁓ you know, a magnet type program like an MB Cook, Brown Barge or West Florida High School, ⁓ to accommodate, you know, folks from all around the county in a at a school that's maybe got a lower population. ⁓ And so that's kind of what I thought we were going into and that and and certainly what ⁓ school board member Krista Bergosh asked me when when she asked if I would be willing to serve and I said I'd be happy to and ⁓ you know that we were gonna take a look at all the schools and see what their attendance was and what changes may need to be made and I think, you know, with seven thousand students going away in that short period of time, you certainly've gotta look at look at it and see what is best to move forward. Rick Outzen: Yeah, each student's right now worth about ninety one hundred dollars, so it's over seven million dollars that was lost in revenue for the school district just this coming this current school year. ⁓ you're a product of public schools? Yeah. Washing Washington Heights. Walker Wilson: School Ferry Pass Middle School and Scenic Heights Elementary. Rick Outzen: Right. You've run for school board and you've studied the issues over time. ⁓ the this is what I did, ⁓ your committee is eight citizens, three ⁓ district administrators are on it. I went back into the time machine and and looked at ⁓ ten years ago, or gosh, twenty years ago, when Jim Paul did it, it the ⁓ I found the newspaper article about it. ⁓ it was back then a school panel refines plan. They met, they had 13 members back then, they met for eight months. ⁓ they came away with some pretty tough decisions. They decided to close Woodham High School. ⁓ Brentwood, Brownsville, and Wedgewood Middle Schools were all closed. ⁓ the it and it was very in the The person in charge of the facilitator at the time was Sean Dennis, who's the facilitator for y'all. But that didn't happen this time. They didn't ask you what, you know, to do research on what to close. They told you what they want to close. Yeah. They told what's going to be closed. They it was no there's no question mark. Walker Wilson: So we were looking I I feel I I think a little bit more so maybe ⁓ and maybe that was the intent of ⁓ you know putting this committee together was rezoning students. ⁓ you know, we're looking at Warrington Elementary, on Navy Boulevard and Lincoln Park Elementary. And there's another smaller school that ⁓ is also in the mix, but ⁓ it's got very, very low student population. Rick Outzen: It's special needs type skills. Walker Wilson: And and so essentially y they're gonna be closing those two elementary schools and we've gotta look to see where now we redistrict those students at the surrounding elementary schools and in those neighborhoods. And you know, I both of these schools have lower than three hundred students enrolled. so certainly, you know, it's probably unsustainable to keep a school like that with that low enrollment going, but ⁓ y you know I guess I thought in my head maybe there would be more to the committee than us just rezoning, which is ⁓ happy to do, happy to serve and and help out. But you know, we had one meeting, we've got another one scheduled in about a week and a half from now. And so, you know, I'm sure that everybody on the committee's probably sitting there thinking, ⁓ you know, what can we do to help and and hope to not have to bring something like this back in a few years if we continue to lose students and ⁓ you know, we're just dealing with two elementary schools in our entire school district, is that solving the problem that we may be facing down the line? And and maybe the school district has studied this, you know, more than than we've been able to look at it just yet and has seen that these are where the issues lie and and that's why they asked us to to look at it. So we'll see what we've got in store where they want us to bring a recommendation to them by December. So we've just got a a couple months, you know, two full months to to be able to do that. And so we're trying to meet every other week. ⁓ until we kind of figure out exactly what our end end goal and recommendation will be to the school board. Rick Outzen: It's it's interesting that that they have such a short turnaround in that, you know, back in in 2006 they knew it was going to take, you know, nine, eight to nine months to go through the process and look at the facilities. And those were big decisions back then. To close a high school was huge, to close three middle schools, all that were in district three, which is now Commissioner May's district, and he'll tell you that their district sorely needs a middle school. The do you think that there's a chance for y'all as a committee to bring it back up or or y how do you plan on chairing it? Walker Wilson: I mean I I think st there's probably a lot of question marks on my end of like what exactly are we able to recommend or do do they want us to look at, right? and so I I certainly plan to go meet with the principals at each of these elementary schools and that would like to meet with some of the principals of the other elementary schools that would be, you know, at this point absorbing the these students into their schools ⁓ to kind of get their take on it. And you know, I had heard mumblings of maybe a year or two ago of the school district looking at combining an elementary s two elementary schools ⁓ and and creating, you know, a K through three and a Rick Outzen: Jay Sims and MB Cook. That was that discussion was going on. I I think ⁓ and we're getting hitting up to a deadline pretty quick, but it probably would be worthwhile for you to go talk to Carissa Bergash, who appointed, and see what the school get a direction that you know, because administrators don't necessarily do what the school board members want. So I I think that that would be a worthwhile deal. ⁓ please keep me informed on what's going on and we'll do our best to get it to y'all. ⁓ the school system's important. Public schools are critical ⁓ part of the quality of life that we have in our community. That's one reason why we stay focused on it with the blog and with In Weekly. ⁓ we'll go ahead and take a break. We'll be right back with Rick's blog live. Walker Wilson: Yeah.