JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – At a Duval County School Board workshop on Wednesday, staff presented a proposed framework for making sure stakeholders’ voices are heard in a process that could see public schools consolidated in Duval County.
The district is considering a consultant-generated plan that proposes closing dozens of schools amid dropping enrollment and a billion-dollar budget shortfall for building costs.
“You want to have thoughtful conversations, and it’s hard to do that with 40, 50 people versus whatever is in the feeder pattern,” said School Board Chair Darryl Willie.
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Dr. Tracy Pierce, who is the district’s chief of marketing and public relations, presented a proposal, which, in addition to public meetings in each district, called for smaller focus groups that can explore the impacts of different options.
“I just want to say I love the idea of putting everybody in a room together and going over...the draft...and then, really sort of what you did for us, we had to understand the need of the district, and then break it down specifically to, what does that look like for our communities? But I think that that…group of people that’s going to break off into their silos, they see the whole picture first,” School Board Vice Chair Charlotte Joyce said, addressing Dr. Pierce.
“Absolutely,” Dr. Pierce responded. “I think for these groups to be effective, there’s got to be some education, some teams meeting beforehand, some, ‘read these things’...let’s come together. We want them to come into the conversation not learning, but ready to do community problem solving together.”
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After discussion, the board decided there would be 12 focus groups, 11 representing each high school feeder pattern proposed in the master facilities plan released Friday, and an additional focus group would represent magnet schools.
Each school would be represented by the head of its School Advisory Council or someone they appoint.
School board members will also be able to appoint two people to a focus group. The idea is to place experts who have backgrounds in areas like accounting, business operations, or logistics, as the district looks to right-size its schools.
You can read the proposed master facility plan, see the schedule for public meetings on this, and access the district’s survey to give your feedback here.