A BOLD IDEA

Escambia County School District has failed the City of Pensacola, and it's time for city leaders to explore creating its own charter school district.

The district's politics favor the unincorporated, more northern portions of Escambia County, leaving the city's urban core behind. Tate High School wants to control the school district, so let them. Pensacola needs to take care of its children.

And maybe House Bill 1 that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law gives us a path to do it. The law gives parents more choices for their children's education by giving them access to vouchers, and the City of Pensacola could make its school system one of those choices.

Let a Northview High School teacher tie up the Escambia County School Board in hours of debate over books and allow the Tate High School administration to make silly rules about what shoes students must wear for graduation. The Pensacola school board can focus on educating its students.

The Pensacola school district would have seven elementary schools (Cordova Park, N.B. Cook, A.K. Suter, O.J. Semmes, Scenic Heights, Reinhardt Holm and Global Learning Academy), one middle school (J. H. Workman) and two high schools (Pensacola High and Booker T. Washington) if the new district took over all the schools currently inside the city limits.

The new district would have academic challenges. Semmes Elementary is one of the lowest-performing schools in Florida and is on the Department of Education's watch list. Global Learning Academy is a D school, and Holm Elementary, Workman Middle and Washington High are C schools.

There will be political pressure from the parochial and private schools because they have fed off the Escambia County School District's mediocrity.

The unspoken workaround for many Pensacola parents is to find a private school when their children enter sixth grade if they can't get them enrolled in Brown Barge Middle School. Pensacola Catholic High School is the option if they are uncertain about Pensacola High or Washington High.

Former School Superintendent Malcolm Thomas tried to stop the brain drain of Cordova Park, A.K. Suter and N.B. Cook students bailing out of the public school system after graduating fifth grade by creating an International Baccalaureate program at Workman Middle in 2010.

The program started well. In its first year, 400 of 880 students were registered in IB. The district's coordinator predicted the school would have 1,000 students once parents learned about the program, and its enrollment jumped to 1,029 students in two years.

Unfortunately, the IB program fizzled. We don't know why, because Thomas never provided the public with any analysis. He shifted his focus away from the troubled middle school and began building schools in the Beulah area to please Navy Federal Credit Union.

This fall, the school district reported to the DOE that Workman's enrollment was only 705 students. Pensacola parents found other options for their middle-school students.

Of course, there also will be pushback from the Escambia County School District. They will not want to lose their highest-performing elementary schools—Cordova Park, N.B Cook and A.K. Suter. They love bragging about the number of college scholarships Pensacola High's IB produces annually.

Gov. DeSantis, Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. and DOE may need to step in and make the necessary law changes to make the takeover possible. And considering how the Escambia County School Board botched the handoff of Warrington Middle to Charter Schools USA, that lift might not be as difficult as it seems.

Countywide school districts are less common in other states. The needs and wants of the unincorporated areas are different from those in the more metropolitan incorporated areas.

Mayor D.C. Reeves believes the future of Pensacola is tied to improving the city's quality of place. Education is a critical component of that premise.

People and businesses will flock to the City of Pensacola if we can build a better public school system inside the city limits. The Escambia County School District is standing in the way. {in} rick@inweekly.net