Alachua County School Board: Transportation issues, contracts and more
The Alachua County School Board held its regular board meeting on Tuesday and discussed general updates on issues ranging from transportation changes to contract negotiations.
Board member Sarah Rockwell brought up Superintendent Shane Andrew’s recent contract proposal, which has not yet been voted on, requesting that it would be workshopped before coming to the next board meeting’s agenda.
The motion to bring Andrew’s contract to a workshop failed and it will be on the Feb. 6 school board meeting agenda.
The school district released a tentative salary agreement with the Alachua County Education Association (ACEA) in December. The agreement must still be ratified by employees, which will happen Wednesday, and the school board will vote on the 3.5% raise during a special meeting on Friday.
Superintendent's contract: Alachua County educators disappointed with proposed $50K raise for superintendent
Board member Leanetta McNealy proposed to rename the Alachua County Public Schools district office after the first African American school board member, Charles Chestnut III.
School grades
There was discussion about School Improvement (SI) schools, or those in need of improvement with a low school grade for multiple years. The district has three options for schools that don’t receive a passing grade: closure, conversion to charter schools or the selection of an External Operator (EO).
“As an organization we’re going to have to make some modifications in how we budget and allocate money,” board member Tina Certain said. “There’s never going to be enough and I’m going to say this: We provide things to higher-achieving students… So we’re going to have to dig deep and find money to support these schools beyond the one year and put the resources there.”
Idylwild Elementary received three consecutive D grades in recent years but increased to a C in the state’s annual school grades released December, meaning the district will not have to hire an EO for it.
The district proposed a plan to hire an EO to take over Lake Forest Elementary if it receives less than a C on the next grade report, which is expected in the summer. The school recently received its fourth failing grade since 2018.
Recent grades: State of Florida releases annual school grades. See how Alachua County schools were graded.
“I’m wondering how this outside provider is going to come in and change the world – get these teachers there,” board member Kay Abbitt said. “Are they going to have a new curriculum or are they still going to use the same curriculum? I mean, we’re spending a half million dollars with the hopes that these people can do something that the district hasn’t done.”
Transportation changes
Director of Transportation Dontarrious Rowls discussed bus route and transportation changes that began Tuesday. These include the elimination of courtesy routes – which transport students who live within a 2-mile radius of their zoned school and cost the district $1.8 million annually – and the optimization of transportation for students in magnet/choice programs.
The number of routes decreased from 110 to 92, which the district said didn’t eliminate any driver positions but instead reduced the current driver shortfall.
“We were in a major driver shortage, some days having to call parents and share with them that the bus was not coming,” Rowls said. “Optimizing some of that and reducing some of that, and reducing our routes down to what we actually needed in order to run daily, is going to help with recovering our routes and ensuring that every student who uses school bus transportation will have a driver each day.”
About the changes: Alachua County school eliminating 'courtesy routes' to help with bus driver shortage
During citizen input, a few expressed their concerns with the elimination of certain routes, which would result in children walking to school on dangerous roads despite the district allowing parents to request transportation for students if their route meets "hazardous walking conditions" as defined by Florida law.
Parents who were concerned about road danger said they filled out a hazardous walking conditions form but did not receive a response from the district.
The district’s Average Bus Occupancy (ABO) increased from 75.29 to 88.32, and Rowls said the higher that number is, the more efficient the operations are. He also said the average cost per student decreased by $310.39 based on the optimization and utilization of school buses.
“We absolutely ask for our community members and parents to work with us as we navigate through this week and get all of our students situated that need school bus transportation,” Rowls said.
Contract cancellation
In April 2021 the school board entered a five-year contract with Cenergistic, an energy conservation platform, to help the board to recognize energy savings.
Almost three years later, the district said the school board has not realized any significant savings in energy costs and wishes to terminate the contract. However, negotiations between the school district and Cenergistic have failed to determine the amounts owed to terminate the contract.
The district’s documents said that a payment of $701,649.87 satisfies the termination clause by “making Cenergistic whole for the work done to date.” Cenergistic said that an additional payment of $825,400 must be made as liquidated damages. The district disputed this and said the additional payment is a penalty that is not enforceable under Florida law.
The board voted unanimously to terminate the contract despite the monetary disagreement, which will be mediated or, if needed, litigated.
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: School board discusses contracts, transportation changes
