School district responds to education commissioner
Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
If the Jefferson County School District (JCSD) gets its wish list, as enumerated in its two-page response to Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, it should be well on its way to regaining independence and autonomy by next year at this time.
The letter, which School Superintendent Eydie Tricquet and transition Principal Jackie Pons drafted, in cooperation with the school board, was in direct response to Corcoran’s Jan. 14 letter.
Corcoran in his letter identified two goals to be achieved: providing a first-class education to all students, and transitioning JCSD “into a fully autonomous, highly effective school district.”
In terms of the Florida Department of Education’s (FDOE) part in the effort, it promised to move forward with its solicitation of a vendor to assist in the district’s transition, which service the department will underwrite until Sept. 30, 2022.
After which time, the district will be solely responsible for the costs of any future services, should it “determine the need for further assistance in the transition of becoming self-sufficient and ensuring that students are provided a great education.”
Corcoran set a deadline of Friday, Jan. 28, for the district to tell the FDOE what the district needed to make it autonomous by July 2022, “and ensure that, at minimum, the district can achieve a district grade of a ‘C’ within one year.”
In its two-page response dated Jan. 24, Tricquet made eight requests to the FDOE.
She asked that the district be removed from the FDOE’s financial oversight, pointing out that the district currently has a 17-percent reserve, “which is approximately five times more than the 3.5-percent reserve threshold required by the state.”
She asked for the same level of funding that Somerset received upon entering its contract and taking control of Jefferson County’s schools five years ago.
“Without the same-level funding, we would be at a deficit of $5 million per year, which will severely hinder our transition,” Tricquet wrote. “In Jefferson County, nearly 140 school employees and their families depend on us; significant job loss due such disabling elimination of funds would be a crisis for our community.”
She requested that the FDOE appoint its Bureau of School Improvement (BSI) to be the district’s transitional leader at state cost.
“BSI involvement is key to academic improvement in Jefferson County,” stated the letter, adding that Pons considered the BSI team led by Dr. Rachel Heide to be the best in the state.
She asked for FDOE assistance with grant applications and access to key programs that Jefferson K-12 and the BSI deemed beneficial to local students, with particular interest expressed in the Community Schools initiative.
She requested that the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER III) funds be held harmless and given to the school district for educational purposes. She expressed concern with the use of ESSER II money to secure an external operator to oversee the district, as the FDOE had earlier proposed.
She respectfully asked that the FDOE not enter into any educational contracts for which the district would be financially responsible.
“We are very proud of our 17-percent reserve and do not want to enter any long-term agreements that would negatively impact the district or jeopardize this status,” Tricquet stated.
She asked for assistance in doing a complete and independent fiscal and property assets audit of all items managed by Somerset Academy since its tenure here began.
Finally, Tricquet accepted the commissioner’s challenge to bring the district up to a ‘C’ grade or higher “within a year of the release of the new progress monitoring test that is to be established statewide in the coming year or so.
State keeps school district on ice a little longer
Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
Although the Jefferson County School District was given a deadline by which it had to respond to the Commissioner of Education’s letter on the issue of the transition, the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) has no set deadline for when it will respond to the district’s eight requests.
Asked specifically by the Jefferson County School Board on Monday evening, Jan. 24, when the FDOE might respond, Deputy Chancellor Paul Burns, who represented the department at the meeting, could give no specific timeline.
Burns said the department would be responding to the district “with a sense of urgency,” understanding the timeframe that the district faced to implement the plan and also alleviate district employees’ concerns about their future employment.
“We will need time to dig into your plan and then we’ll have a better idea of when we will be able to respond,” Burns said.
Transition Principal Jackie Pons, who presented the district’s plan to the school board in the superintendent’s absence, joked that he was sure that the FDOE would be granting all the district’s requests.
Pons, in his presentation, expounded and expanded on the meaning of the district’s various requests as he shared them with the school board and the public on Monday evening, Jan. 24.
He called a recent meeting that he and others of the leadership team had had with Somerset’s employees productive. The district, he said, had 140 employees who needed to be transitioned back into FTE funding.
“The employees are concerned,” Pons said. “They want clarification as to what’s going to happen.”
He recited each of the district’s eight requests to the FDOE, expounding a little on each. He noted that as a former Blue Ribbon Principal, who had been one of only 14 across the country in the year he had been chosen, he was confident that the district could attain the “C” grade that the FDOE requested.
“I feel that we share the same mission, which is the make the schools the best,” Pons said. “That’s why we’re asking for the same resources as Somerset got when it came here.”
Burns said the FDOE basically had two goals. One, he said, was to help the district as it transitioned into an organization that would provide a world-class education. The second, he said, was to ensure that the district was financially healthy and effective.
He said the FDOE would be proceeding with the Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) to find a contractor to help the district with its transition.
“Three companies have bid,” Burns said, not saying if one of the three was the one involved in the recent controversy because of its alleged connections to insiders at the FDOE.
“There is a process laid out in statute,” Burns said of how the winning contractor would be selected. “There will be a review and a recommendation made to accept one of the companies.”
The contract, he said, would extend until Sept. 30, 2022, with the FDOE picking up the cost for the service. Afterwards, he said, it would be up to district to decide if it wanted to continue getting assistance. The district, however, would have to borne any costs beyond Sept. 30, 2022, he said.
It would also be the district’s decision if it wanted to use the federal ESSER funds to hire a contractor, Burns added.
Pons and School Board Member Sandra Saunders, among others, expressed optimism about the latest developments, if Saunders’ were the more guarded comments.
“Look at this way,” Pons said. “We’re in a much better position than we were six weeks ago.”
Saunders confessed that she too was more optimistic with the recent developments than she had been in a long time, given the FDOE’s many broken promises and harsh treatment of the district in the past. “Make a believer of me,” Saunders said she had told the FDOE personnel when they had told her that this time would be different.
O.J. Sloan, a former Sheriff’s deputy and resource officer here, had the last word on the matter.
Sloan confessed feeling emotional about the prospect of the district regaining control of the schools.
As a former resource officer in the school and a parent who had pulled his kids from the district because he had lost faith in it, he welcomed the transition, he said.
“The charter school made money and we didn’t see a lot of gain,” Sloan said, not pulling his punches. “I think this plan can work, but it’s going to take community buy-in from everyone – white, black, blue or green. And there are going to be eyes on this board. There are transparency issues. We don’t want to see board meetings like we used to see in the past. We have issues in this county. But if we commit to work as one and put aside our differences, we can be successful. Nobody wants to come to a district that’s failing. But I believe we have a chance to be great again.”