District may get schools back next year

Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.

School Superintendent Eydie Tricquet and the Jefferson County School Board are seeing possible light at the end of the tunnel, in terms of the district taking back control of the schools.

Tricquet informed the board members on Monday evening, Jan. 11, that she had been in communications with officials at both Somerset and the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) in preparation for creating a plan that would allow the district to retake control of schools.

“We need to create a plan and submit it to the FDOE to get its permission,” Tricquet said.
She said she was in the process of collecting information that would enable her to create a budget and a plan detailing how the district would retake the school. The FDOE, she said, wanted to see how the district envisioned the rollout process. The state, also, wanted to ensure that if the district took back the schools, it would maintain the same level of academic rigor that Somerset currently had.

She added that the FDOE wanted the district to take back the schools and was willing to help it succeed in the endeavor. She noted that Somerset’s contract expired this year and Somerset officials were aware of the expiration and ready to be relieved of the responsibility of running the school.

But the first step in the process, she emphasized, was to create a plan and budget and submit them to the FDOE for approval.

Tricquet spoke of the possibility that exiting positions might have to be eliminated or consolidated if the district took back the schools, as Somerset’s is a much larger budget than what the district’s would be.

“We need to look at the budget and see how many teachers we can afford and how many administrators we can hire,” she said.

She offered the possibility that the district might be able to work in conjunction with, and under the oversight of, Somerset during the last year, to ensure a smooth transition.

The transition of principals and administrators also would have to be addressed, she said.
Tricquet acknowledged that a concern existed among some in the community that if the district took back the schools, things might revert to the way they were before and the schools may not perform as well as they are performing presently. That, however, would not be the case, she said.

“We’re not going back to where we were,” Tricquet said. “We’re going to start where Somerset is leaving off and continuing forward from there. It will be as good or better when it becomes Jefferson County’s again.”

She reiterated that Somerset wanted out of the contract and was willing to work with the district to ensure a smooth transition. But she added a caveat, noting that the FDOE had the ultimate say over the transition.

“If the FDOE commissioner is not satisfied with our plan, the commissioner can extend the contract for how ever long it takes for us to do what the FDEO wants,” she said.
She was certain, however, that the transition would proceed and proceed smoothly, so long as the district presented a fiscally sound plan.

“They want to do everything possible to make sure that we are successful,” she said.
On related matters, Tricquet reported that 75 to 80 percent of students had returned to in-person classes following the winter break. She said the figures broke down into 80 percent at the elementary school, 57 percent at the middle school and 62 percent at the high school.

She said that in the coming weeks, district personnel would be contacting the parents of the 25 percent of students who were still taking virtual classes and who weren’t doing well academically.

The idea, she said, was to offer these students additional help so that they could improve their performances or encourage them to return to school for the in-person classes.
Tricquet also asked the board to reconsider establishment of a virtual school similar to Florida Virtual. Only the district would run it in conjunction with Somerset and the district would get to keep the money, she said.

The board reportedly voted down the proposal several months ago when Somerset initially proposed it.

Tricquet, however, asked the board to reconsider it, saying it was a worthwhile option. The way it would work, she said, Somerset would set up the infrastructure for the virtual school and the district would get to keep it once Somerset was gone.