Schools delay block
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

Gulf Breeze High parents and faculty - and students - can breath a sigh of relief. They have received a one year reprieve from any scheduling changes. That means there will be no block scheduling at the high school next year.

Santa Rosa School District Superintendent John Rogers opened the school board's special meeting last week with the statement that there would be a new recommendation presented to the concerning change of scheduling to block schedules for every high school in the county. All high schools had been told they would be changing to the four by four block schedule for the next school year, beginning August 2008, unless their teachers voted to sign a special waiver to their contract. That waiver would require teachers to teach six classes a day, even though their contract specifies they only have to teach five. And it would take 80 percent of the teachers at any school to vote to sign the waiver. Gulf Breeze teachers had voiced concerns about block scheduling, but had come short by less than five teachers of approving the waiver, even though Navarre High teachers did vote to avoid block scheduling.

Tim Wyrosdick, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, told the school board, "My staff and I have been in every high school in the county over the past month, and this issue has been on the tip of everyone's tongue, from north to the south in the county. It is what everyone wants to talk about. And we have had many parents and members of the public come forward and offer to assist us in finding more equitable funding, and with the time frames put in place by the recom- mendation of December 2007 approved by the board to ask all county high schools to go on block scheduling beginning August 2008 be rescinded, and instead approve a recommendation to postpone all changes throughout the county high schools for one year, as far as whether to introduce block scheduling. The board immediately voted approval of the postponement.

Superintendent Rogers said there were three main reasons they were taking this action. "The Governor has just released his budget for next year, and if it holds, it would be good for us and good for schools across the state. He is asking for an increase in funding to $383 per student to come to all the schools. That would help us a lot," Rogers said. "And the State House and Senate are right now looking at ways to help us with the requirements and restrictions of the class size amendment, so that would help if we could get some relief in that area. And we had a lot of parents from all over the county come forward to say they would help us actively in lobbying lawmakers and finding alternative ways to help with funding problems at the schools here. So I believe now we have a plan with this new recommendation that will allow for some public input over the next year, and still keep us in line with our budget for one more year, until we see what the state legislator does.

Superintendent Rogers also said, "Through this process I believe the schools and the parents have a better understanding of our fiscal situation and what state regulations are doing to us. Since the class size amendment was approved by voters, we in this county have already spent $42 million through the end of last school year in operating funds to fulfill all the requirements, and that is not in new classrooms. By the end of this school year, we will have spent $66 million in operating funds just because of the class size amendment."

"We now have parents eagerly requesting to help lobby the state in finding more funding for us," Superintendent Rogers said. One problem he pointed to was the fact that the state funding formula puts Santa Rosa School district at number 66 out of 67 school districts in funds received from the state, even though it is one of the top performing school districts in the state and country.

School board member Ed Gray III of Gulf Breeze said, "have been investigating this school funding formula for some time now, as you know, and we are now getting meetings set up with some of the state legislators. We have had Rep. Sansom on our side on this for a long time, but we need to get the other state legislators to understand the differential in funding that is causing us problem. It is not fair for the state to reward counties who perform with mediocrity with more funding, and give us less because we are a top performing county. I just found out, also, that the formula for this funding was set back in the 70's, so there are a lot of people at the state level who are now admitting this needs another look. We are pushing for that to happen, and soon."