Rick Patrick
rick@greenepublishing.com
During the regular meeting of the Madison County District School Board on Monday, July 3, the board took another look at the staffing allocation plan presented at a previous meeting. During that meeting, it was suggested that Madison County Central School (MCCS) change their staffing to have just one principal for the entire school, instead of the current separate principals for elementary and middle school grades. Previously, the board had rejected that suggestion on a 4-1 vote, with Board Chair Carol Gibson casting the only vote in favor of the change.
Sandy Brusca, the Regional Executive Director for the Bureau of School Improvement (BSI) for the Florida Department of Education, spoke to the board. She stated her reasons for suggesting having just one principal for the school. “I have been doing this work since 2012, and I have never supported a school having two principals,” said Brusca. “MCCS is unique, we went in with good faith, but after this year, we did make the recommendation to [Supt. Of Schools] Joseph to reconsider having two principals there and going to one principal. We experienced a lot of divide in the school. It is an ‘us and them.’ So this school pulls one school grade; and really, it should be a unified approach to school improvement. We did not see that. We saw that the elementary (k-5) operated in a certain way and the 6-8 [grades] operated in a certain way. They had very different visions on improvement.” Brusca also mentioned difficulty when Dept. of Education staff needed to visit with school administrators, they had to schedule two different meetings and could not meet with the administrative team as a whole. Brusca used an analogy when explaining her point. “We are all rowing, but are we all rowing the same ship in the same direction and at the same speed? When I went to MCCS, it seemed that no one knew what the other was doing. That would have been okay if it were two separate schools, but this is one school, pulling one grade. That’s why we made our recommendation.” The total number of administrators will remain the same under the BSI recommendation, there would be just one principal for the school, with the remainder of the administrative team made up of assistant principals.
Board member Frankie Carrol stated that after hearing Brusca explain her recommendations, he saw it differently. Other board members agreed. A vote was taken again to adopt a new allocation at MCCS and was accepted on a 4-1 vote, with Board Member VeEtta Hagan casting the dissenting vote.
Isaac Goyette presented a template for contracts for venders who may utilize student information. The new template is to help ensure student privacy. The template was approved on a unanimous vote.
The board approved a request to advertise changes to the Code of Student Conduct. There are proposed changes that will be discussed at a later date.
The next scheduled meeting of the Madison County District School Board is scheduled to take place on Monday, July 17, at 6 p.m. The meeting will take place in the board meeting room, located at 210 NE Duval Ave., in Madison.