Latest / Rick Outzen: (we don’t) color on the dog / Saving Public Schools
Transcript
- Rick Outzen: Welcome back. I'm Rick Altson. This is Rick's Blog Live Public Education. I am heavily invested in public education. The community, I've got two of my grandchildren in public education. All my kids were in public education. And I have a daughter who's a teacher in middle school. Probably the hardest job in the world is teaching middle school. To give us an update on what's going on, I've asked Superintendent Keith Leonard to join us, Scammy County Schools. I keep hearing about this presentation you made at at a workshop it in September before the board, the school board. I found it on YouTube and you touched on a lot of po a lot of reality moments of what you're dealing with. of course number one was enrollment. Yes. You know, I think at the time were you told me this we we have, you know, thirty-three thousand one hundred and twenty nine How did that number hold up when the official count in October? Keith Leonard: Well today we have thirty three thousand and sixty-five students Rick Outzen: Got it. Keith Leonard: enrolled in our public school system. First of all, thank you for having me. I don't wanna ever pass up an opportunity to talk about our school district. I did a presentation back in September to talk about academic momentum, then to talk about the truths of where we are as far as student enrollment, how that has changed over the last five, six years and how it's changed dramatically. The state of education in Florida has changed with the voucher system. Talked a little bit about some of the things that we have done in the past two years, whether it be a hiring freeze, travel freeze, right sizing our staffing population as it relates to instructional staff members, administrative staff members, support staff. went through all of that and then I talked about what perhaps should be next steps, laid that out for our school board members, our our citizenry here in Escambia County. Because there are gonna have to be some things that are done. Sometimes those items aren't always fun to do. Right. I've told you before, leadership is lonely. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna make certain our board is well informed. They'll be able to make the decisions that they need to make, because we need to make certain that our public school system here in Escambia County has a chance to be the best that they possibly can. Rick Outzen: You've activated a SAZAT committee. Yes. it's looking it's part of its charge from you is to look at Lincoln Park Elementary, and to look at Warrington Elementary. the in and create watching the video you talked about taking the MB Cook model and creating that on the west side of town. Let's talk about Lincoln Park. Because it's a school that was that was struggling for a long period of time. It's gotten up to a B, but its school its attendance zone has been rated by by other schools. It it it doesn't have that many students, but it seems to be w Keith Leonard: One of the it is working. They do a great job at Lincoln Park, just like all other of our 32 elementary schools. They work their tail off to make certain they're providing those students the great opportunities educationally. Lincoln Park is a small neighborhood school. If you just ask Keith Leonard, that would be the last thing that he would want to be able to do, or have to even bring up. That school is built for about 300 students. And right now, I want to say earlier this week when we were looking at things prior to the SAS AC meeting yesterday, it's like 195 kids, and that's including pre-K that are currently at Lincoln Park. Within that attendance zone, there's at least three times the number of those students that live within that attendance zone. But they've chosen to go elsewhere. So we that's one of the places that we looked. I had to start somewhere. Told you again, leadership slowly. The two schools that I picked for us to be able to look at rezoning those students to other sites were schools that were under 300 students. And that would just happen to be Lincoln Park in Warrington right now. Our school board has talked many, many years now about trying to do a cook model on the west side. I'm certainly not opposed to that. I'm very excited about trying to do something like that for students on the west side of our county. There was one other school that serves a therapeutic type mental health group of of students. There's only 33 students at that site, and it's one entire site. So we're looking at co-locating students to another location with that site. we'll be able to bring those new zones in December to our school board, so there'll be a public hearing for that. And then the hopefully the final decision would be made in January. I'm actually going out to Lincoln Park next week, I believe it's Thursday, to talk to their faculty. I hope to be able to do that again with Warrington and actually talk to the be members of the community. But when you lose seven thousand students, you're gonna have somewhere you gotta give. So those are just a couple of the the ideas. So when Rick Outzen: When you look at Lincoln Park w you know, and y'all have I too one thing y'all do today that we didn't have five years ago, ten years ago, is your data scientists that you have, y'all y'all are able to really get down to the minutiae of what's going on. Where are the students going that you Lincoln Park's missing? Keith Leonard: Yeah, so they're looking you talking about right now? Yeah, yeah. Rick Outzen: Well out out of the let's say out of the, you know, twelve, thirteen hundred eligible kids, where are they going? Everywhere. Keith Leonard: with school choice, if you can provide that transportation or we have a trunk route, you can end up going anywhere you want to. Rick Outzen: So they could stay in the public school system anywhere they wanted, as long as there was a desk. Keith Leonard: Difficult to figure out is where families are that never came to our school district. That's very, very difficult. And we don't have them in our database. So if they take a voucher, we don't know because we never had them. We know about the ones that have been with us and are now taking a voucher. But it's everywhere. If you and I both lived in Lincoln Park's district, you had a child, you let them stay at Lincoln Park, you thought that was what you wanted to do. I work at Jim Allen and I want I I take my child with me. Right. And when you've got, you know, twenty seven hundred teachers, that does occur. and that community has grown. There's old homes there that have been around for years and there's brand new homes. it there's some good things about school choice and being able to go anywhere you want to go. And there's also some difficult things, some challenges for a school district, and this just happens to be one of them. Rick Outzen: Talk about the MBcut model. What for someone who's not familiar with that, what is that model? Keith Leonard: So art, drama, was there d y are you gonna ask me about the hurricane as well? Rick Outzen: No, no. Well that's a whole nother show. Keith Leonard: But drama, theater, música, dance. we actually have a dance teacher that helps us with that, that art, right, which I'm not I don't have much rhythm. Rick Outzen: been some talk of taking MB Cook and and you know w working something out with OJ Sims and and using middle Keith Leonard: I I think I'm creative. Some of the things that I had thought about and talked to our board about was actually making that cook a K A model. Right. And using OJ Sims and also doing a small attendance zone within that community. I I got mixed reviews on that. real realtors loved it. some of the parents thought it was a really good idea and some of the parents didn't think it was a good idea. But it was not to do anything to diminish what they are what they do at Cook. It was actually to try to expand it. And our data scientist has actually been able to drill down to the data. And I want to say it's now three years in a row that if we had tried that, all three of those, all both of those schools would have been an A. Right. If you go by grade. Rick Outzen: Right, right. it it's one other idea, now you've got me thinking, you know, when I listen to what you say, you know, and the other idea that was being kicked around, and in fact I sat in on a parents meeting gosh, over a year ago, on creating a a middle school program at Penskola High, an IB Middle School program. Where where does that stand? Keith Leonard: It's going well. Eighty I'm gonna say we have around eighty or eighty two kids in seventh and eighth grade currently at Pensacola High School. you may see us bring that to be a sixth, seventh and eighth. The other thing you may see that's part of what I put in the presentation was adding sixth grade at a few of our other elementary schools. If we have capacity, which obviously we do, why not take advantage of that? Moms and dads are a little hesitant about that trip into middle school. You know, yeah, that was Talk about the difficult place for you. Your daughter teaches middle school is a different world. Right. so those are some of the things that we're throwing out there. You're right, we've done that at Pensacola High School. We have our school choice expo tomorrow night. I'm hopeful that there'll be many, many parents. More importantly, students that are interested in going into that middle school year's academic program in hopes of being in the IB program, because that is one top-notch program there. Rick Outzen: Right. Yeah, there's one topic that that came up last week at the school board meeting, the book The Devil's Arithmetic, which is a part of the Holocaust curriculum. the where does that book stand right now with the school district? Keith Leonard: That book is removed from K through six. Okay. It is still available at our middle schools and our high schools. And there were several books that were on that list, that were on the states list that we took to our board for approval that had grade ranges and grade bands in it. That's where those books would be removed from. If they were moved, were removed from another school district, K through six, that's what will occur in our school district, and that's where the devil's arithmetic is. Rick Outzen: Okay, so the book is still Keith Leonard: In middle school and high school. Rick Outzen: in middle school and high school. Keith Leonard: Good. Seventh seventh through twelfth grade is what it was. Rick Outzen: in in y i it was a com confusing meeting and and the I know that that th there was a lot of concern because there was you know, the idea of of not teaching a book like this, which is there's a there's a place for historic novels that really help kids connect to a story better than just getting the raw numbers or, you know, a history book as its own. y the I think I think you and I both probably read it in I know I I I think I read it in middle school. I thought Keith Leonard: Back in time. I'm not certain. I believe it was published in the late 70s. So either I read it or I used it to teach when I was a social studies teacher. So I was familiar with it. I do believe it's very appropriate for upper middle school and high school students. I can see where there could be some inappropriate material in there that you might not want a second or third grader to read. So I I get it. Yeah. Rick Outzen: Well Keith, thank you so much for coming on. Always it's been good. Appreciate it. It really has. We're gonna go ahead and take a break. I've ran this one longer than I should have, but it when you're talking to Keith Leonard, you want to get as many questions in as you can. We'll go ahead and take a break. We'll be right back.