Early voting, new principals, how many vacancies are at your school?
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Early voting is ON and will continue through Aug. 21. When it comes to education-related issues, there are two contested school board races going on as well as a property tax increase referendum.
On the school board side of things:
Four women are running for two seats on the Duval County School Board during a year when culture wars and endorsements by Gov. Ron DeSantis have encouraged a sense that there’s a lot at stake.
District 2: Elizabeth Andersen (incumbent) v. April Carney
The race in District 2, which reaches roughly from Mayport to Butler Boulevard and from the ocean to parts of Kernan Boulevard, has drawn endorsements for both candidates from Beaches political circles.
District 6: Charlotte Joyce (incumbent) v. Tonya Hardaker
District 6 arcs from Riverside-Avondale through most of the Westside to Baldwin and the Baker County line.
“We are going to fundamentally transform Florida’s school boards and it starts on August 23,” trumpeted the 1776 Project PAC, a national committee centered on the idea of purging critical race theory from public schools, in a tweet last month saying the committee and DeSantis both support District 2 challenger April Carney and District 6 incumbent Charlotte Joyce.
The races for the nonpartisan seats coincide with the emergence in school board politics of another group, Moms for Liberty, whose Duval County chapter described itself online as “dedicated to the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.”
Voters to decide on Duval schools property tax referendum for teacher raises, arts, sports
Jacksonville voters will soon get to decide on raising the city's property tax — a historic move that school district officials say will give local teachers substantial raises and help fund the purchasing of new gear for arts and athletics programs across Duval County Public Schools.
Earlier this year, Superintendent Diana Greene introduced a pitch to roll out a 1 mill property tax increase to address the school district's uphill battle against declining student enrollment and teacher vacancies.
Greene says boosting teacher salaries and hyper-targeting programs that private and charter schools may not offer — such as athletics — could help combat those issues.
“This is what is needed to move our district to the next level,” Greene said.
16 Duval County principals reassigned. Did your school make the list?
Sixteen Duval County Public Schools principals have been reassigned ahead of the 2022-23 school year.
That's down about 27 percent compared to last year when 22 principals moved schools. In 2020, 30 principals were reassigned. Most of the moves went into effect in July.
Notable moves include Andrea Willis, who was promoted from Assistant Principal at Martin Luther King Elementary to the same school's top position. Willis is one of five assistant principals who moved into a principal position this year, though not all stayed at their respective original schools.
The Times-Union compiled a list of principals leaving — breaking down the school, outgoing principal, where they're going and who their replacement will be — based on multiple public records provided by Duval County Public Schools. We've converted that list into a searchable database.
See if your school's on the list
Exclusive: Duval Schools reports 389 teacher vacancies. Here's a list by school.
Duval County Public Schools continues to see large vacancies when it comes to teaching positions across the district.
New records obtained by the Times-Union show 389 vacant classroom teacher positions with the new school year just around the corner. That's slightly down from the 470 teacher vacancies the district reported last month.
In some cases, students receiving their class schedules don't always know who will be behind the big desk. Some students reported that their schedules say "vacant" for some of their classes' teacher listings.
How many teacher vacancies does your school have?
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Emily Bloch is a youth culture and education reporter for The Florida Times-Union. Follow her on Twitter or email her. Sign up for her newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Early voting, new principals, how many vacancies are at your school?
