Community Reaction To Carver/Century Closure
March 18, 2009
Disappointment — that was the recurring word used by Carver/Century K-8 School supporters following the Escambia County School Board’s decision to close the school.
“I am disappointed; I thought we had a chance,” Century Mayor Freddie McCall said. “I thought (board member) Patty Hightower might change her mind. We finally got a good principal, and he needs the chance to finish the job he started. We just had that cloud of closure over our heads. We needed that three years without that cloud of closure that I asked the board for.”
“It’s a sad situation that this had to happen,” said Carver/Century Principal Jeff Garthwaite. “They are dismantling our family; we all share a common bond.”
“Now we must look forward; we can’t look back,” Garthwaite said. “The primary thing is our students and now we must focus on them.”
“They are totally doing Century wrong,” Annie Savage, grandmother of a Carver/Century student, said. “But it is not over. I feel that the school board has done us wrong.”
Savage said the majority of the tax dollars in the northern part of Escambia County are from Century, and she said people in Walnut Hill and Bratt choose to visit the doctors and drug stores in Century, adding to those tax dollars.
But that tax dollar majority has been ignored, Savage said, in the closing of Century’s only school.
“And taking them out of Carver and putting them in Ernest Ward is segregation,” Savage added, saying that moving black students from the predominantly black Century school to the predominantly white Ernest Ward was a problem. “I still say that is segregation.”
“I am mad and frustrated,” said Michelle Richmond, mother of Carver/Century sixth grader Olivia Richmond. “I am not looking forward to sending my child to a new school.”
Richmond said she moved her daughter from a larger Santa Rosa County school to the smaller Carver/Century because she felt it was a better opportunity for her child, an A-B honor roll student.
“I hate to put her back in a big school. She will be lost,” Richmond said.
Board Approves Nearly $1 Million In Renovations At Bratt Elementary
March 18, 2009
The Escambia School District has approved $946,407 in renovations at Bratt Elementary School.
The renovations will take place in the front/west wing of the school and will include new windows, doors, and floors for the building that was constructed in 1980. It will also include the installation of a central heating and cooling system. The main portion of the renovation contract was $770,500.
The board approved additional renovations at the school, including:
- replace restroom fixtures in the west wing, $3,425
- replace lighting and ceilings in west wing, $36,500
- renovations in guidance and administration areas, $26,000
- replace air handling units in cafetorium, $82,600
- replace water meter and piping for increased water pressure, $27,382
The total bid of $946,407 was awarded to low bidder Morette Company of Pensacola. There were a total of nine bidders on the project, with five bids coming in at over $1 million.
School Superintendent Malcolm Thomas noted that the funds for this project were from funding sources that could not have been used to keep Carver/Century K-8 School open. The funding for the Bratt Elementary improvements was only available for building improvements, not salaries or educational materials.
Blog: Century Council’s Actions Were Just Plain Stupid
March 18, 2009
Irresponsible. That’s probably the best word to describe the actions of the Century Town Council at their Monday night meeting. At least it is a better word than stupid.
The Century Town Council spent more time debating and put more apparent thought process into hiring a man to clean ditches with a shovel than they did to hire an attorney to take on the Escambia County School Board.
Less than 24 hours before the school board was to make the final vote to close Carver/Century K-8 School, the council listened to a short presentation from Leroy Boyd of the group Movement for Change. Boyd told the council that they could hire lawyer Jeffery Toney for $7,500 to $8,000 to file an injunction against the school board in an attempt to save the school.
Boyd told the council that he had been “asked to come here”, but declined to say who asked him to speak to the council. He told them that the school board had already made their decision, and in order to save the town’s only school “you will have to file a legal challenge”.
With that little information, the council was ready to whip out the checkbook and sign a blank check over to an attorney they apparently did not know; Council President Ann Brooks even had to ask Boyd how to spell Toney’s name.
Boyd cautioned the council that the up to $8,000 to file the injunction might not be the end of their expenses. He warned the council that Toney had told him to expect an appeal on whichever side lost the injunction hearing, plus if an injunction were obtained there were be additional fees for fighting a case and any appeals.
At no point did any council member or the mayor ask what the legal basis for an injunction against the school board might be. At no point did any council member or the mayor ask about Mr. Toney’s qualifications or experience as an attorney.
It took a question from NorthEscambia.com, not the council, for Boyd to say he did not know what the legal basis for a court case might be, other than “it won’t be race”.
It was nearly a year ago that NorthEscambia.com broke the story that Carver/Century could be targeted for closure, nearly a month before the topic was brought up at a school board meeting. We even ran an investigative piece in May that detailed where students that live in the Carver/Century attendance zone actually attend school, one of the primary sets of data used by the school board in their closure decision.
The council has known for at least almost one year the the school board would eventually vote to close the town’s only school. But the council decided to hire an attorney they knew very little, if anything, about less than 24 hours before they knew the ax would fall on the school.
We are not going to discuss the school closing; what is done is done. We are making no insinuations about the legal expertise of Mr. Toney; we frankly know very little about him. It’s not about Mr. Toney’s rates for his services; he’s got as much right to make a living as the next guy. And we are indifferent toward Movement for Change, also knowing little about their group. This is not an opinion about whether or not the council should be fighting the school board, that’s why you get legal advice before deciding if you should announce you’ll try to seek an injunction against somebody. (Oops.)
Our problem with the Century council’ s stupid (sorry — irresponsible) actions Monday night would be the same if the lawyer were Mr. Toney or Pensacola’s Fred Levin, the well known attorney for which the law school at the University of Florida is named.
The council spent nearly 10 minutes discussing if they should hire a laborer to clean ditches. The candidate, chosen from a field of 28 applicants, had qualifications that the mayor and department supervisor felt were adequate for the job. The mayor and a supervisor interviewed him. The gentlemen passed his criminal background check. The mayor recommend that the council hire him.
But after much discussion, the council decided that they wanted to meet the man that will clean their ditches for $10 an hour before they hired him.
But when it came time to hire an attorney to file for an injunction against the Escambia County School Board for legal reasons unknown to the council, the council made a quick and irrational decision 5-0 to hire Toney for perhaps $8,000 plus. But wait…don’t fill in that check yet because there might be appeals and other expenses. We think the legal terminology is “blank check”.
This is the same council that, also at Monday night’s meeting, was unable to approve a $500 donation to the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life until they could find a budget category where they had the money. The council has made a great effort this year to play by their own rules and spend no money until it was in a budgeted category. There was no discussion where the council will get the funds to pay Mr. Toney.
Perhaps there is enough money in the town’s legal expense category. The council does, after all, have a town attorney. And they did save money by not bothering to discuss their legal concerns over the school closure with their own attorney. Why would you know there was an issue for a year and not discuss it with your own attorney, but instead hire someone unknown to you 24 hours before the school’s D-day?
Where was the thought process on the part of the council? They apparently did not learn from their past mistakes that making quick decisions of a major nature based upon a fast presentation can come back to bite them.
A few months ago, the council approved a resolution supporting the creation of a commission to study consolidated government in Escambia County. A special interest group make a slick presentation, and they were soon smiling and signing a resolution they had never seen before that was prepared by that special interest group.
It was not long before they learned that perhaps what they had signed so quickly might not have been what they thought it was, and they were soon rescinding the resolution much to the delight of the Pensacola media that made them look worse than foolish.
Let’s hope the young man that has applied for the $10 an hour job to clean and dig ditches in Century passes the scrutiny of the of Century council and gets his job. He’s willing to bust his butt to have a job if he’s willing to clean ditches for $400 a week. What a responsible man.; we like him already. And he can be proud to know that he will undergo more review than a lawyer hired on an unbudgeted whim by the council.
The council’s actions were not irresponsible, the first word we used in this blog. It’s that second term we should have used — stupid.
We welcome your appropriate on-topic comments below.
Deputies Looking For Shooting Suspect
March 17, 2009
Escambia County deputies are looking for a suspect in the shooting of a Pensacola man last week.
Investigators are looking for Tracy Lynn Konewko, 45, in the shooting of 81-year old Charles Moore.
Moore was shot last Thursday inside his home on Emory Drive in an early afternoon robbery.
Deputies say Konewko (pictured) is considered a suspect in this case.
Anyone with any information is asked to call the Escambia County Sheriff’s Department at 436-9620 and ask for Investigator James O’Hara, or call Crime Stoppers at 433-STOP.
Today’s Northview School Advisory Council Meeting Canceled
March 17, 2009
The Northview High School School Advisory Council meeting scheduled for this afternoon has been canceled.
The next meeting of the Northview SAC will be April 20 at 3 p.m. in the media center.
School advisory council meetings are open to the public.
Escambia River Flood Warning Canceled
March 17, 2009
The National Weather Service has canceled a flood warning for the Escambia River at Century.
At 10 this morning, the river was at 14.6 feet. Flood stage is 17 feet.
Deputies Bust Major North Escambia Burglary Ring
March 17, 2009
The Escambia County Sheriff’s Department has busted up a major burglary ring operating in the North Escambia area, arresting three people and recovering perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen merchandise.
Three people — a female and two males — were arrested Monday by deputies after an attempted burglary on Clymil Drive, just south of Williams Ditch Road in the Cottage Hill area. Deputies say at least two more people are expected to be arrested in connection with the burglaries. In all, the suspects are believed to be responsible for about 25 burglaries in the area.
“We recovered a lot of merchandise,” Lt. Tony Jordan of the Escambia Sheriff’s Department told NorthEscambia.com. Property recovered from an apartment complex on Olive Road in Pensacola included a long list of big screen TVs, jewelry, games systems, DVDs, computers and more.
The arrests came Monday after the Clymil Drive resident came home to find a vehicle backed to his home and called for help. Deputies located the vehicle and made their arrests, but not before the female suspect reported that she had been carjacked, Jordan said.
The persons arrest Monday are possibly linked to 25 similar burglaries across the area this year, according to the Sheriff’s Department. In the typical burglary, one suspect would knock on the front door of the home. If no one answered the door, the suspects would back their car up to the home and kick in the backdoor, Jordan said. Most of the took place in isolated areas, often at homes where trees or shrubbery block the view of the home from the road.
In an incident last week, a man returned to his home in the 4000 block of Chestnut Road in Molino to find one of the burglars inside his home.
Most of the burglaries took place in the Cantonment and Molino areas, Jordan said. Deputies have not been able to determine if an incident late last week on Morgan Road in Walnut Hill was related. In that incident, the resident told deputies that he arrived at his home to find two black males in a white work-type truck in his backyard. They told the resident that they were there to fix a refrigerator.
The names of the suspects taken into custody Monday were not released by deputies due to the ongoing investigation and pending arrests.
More details on this story when they become available.
Century To Join Activist Group To Seek Court Injunction To Stop Carver/Century Closure
March 17, 2009
The Century Town Council has voted to join forces with the Pensacola activist group Movement for Change in seeking a court order to block the closure of Carver/Century K-8 School.
The Escambia County School Board is expected to vote tonight to close the school at the end of this school year. Leroy Byrd, president of the group, told the Century Town Council Monday night that the courts were their only hope of saving the town’s only school.
“The school district has already made a decision without announcing that decision. The outcome is already known,” he said. “You will have to file a legal challenge; it will not make a difference what you say.”
During his presentation to the council, Boyd never specified on what grounds the group would seek the injunction, other than to mention that the school district has “no compassion for poverty”.
When NorthEscambia.com asked what the basis for the injunction would be, Boyd simply replied that, “It won’t be race.”
He estimated that it would cost the council $7,500 to $8,000 in legal fees to hire attorney Jeffery Toney to file the injunction, and he cautioned the council that there could be additional appeals filed regardless of which side prevailed in court that would result in additional costs.
After making his case to the council, Boyd left the meeting and was not present for the council’s discussion or vote.
“The only way we could have a possible chance is to file that injunction,” said council member Gary Riley. “I feel it is worth it.”
“Whatever we can do to save our school, I’m all for it,” council member Sharon Scott said. “We’ve got to do everything,” council member Nadine McCaw added.
“The injunction should get us out of this dog fight altogether,” council member Henry Hawkins said. But without support and programs for the school, he said “we are going to have the same fight next year.”
The council voted 5-0 in favor of joining Movement for Change to seek the injunction to block the closure of Carver/Century.
When Boyd began his presentation to the council on behalf of Movement for Change, he told the council that he wanted 100 percent support from the town to save the school.
“There are some in this community who do not want to save Century,” he said. “We think to save Century, you have to have a school.”
“We want to see one Century come together to save Century,” Boyd added. “Not a racial divide, but one Century.”
Century Mayor Freddie McCall acknowledged that a small group of people in the town may want to acquire a charter school, but the group is a very small minority working contrary to the efforts of the town and its Blue Ribbon Committee that was formed to look at ways to save Carver/Century. The town has not even discussed opening a charter school, the mayor said, and they will not until the school board has actually voted for the closure.
McCall said the small minority wanted a charter school in Century for “handicap school or something”, and “I wasn’t part of it.”
“The majority of Century is on board to save our school,” the mayor said.
Pictured above: Leroy Boyd from Movement for Change addresses the Century Town Council Monday night. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Carver/Century Closure Expected To Become Final Tonight
March 17, 2009
The Escambia County School Board holds the keys to Carver/Century K-8 School in their hands, and tonight they are expected to vote lock the doors at the end of this school year.
The board is expected to vote tonight to rezone Carver/Century K-8 School students to Bratt Elementary and Ernest Ward Middle School.
“The effect of these changes is to close Carver/Century K8,” the board’s detailed agenda for tonight says.
Want to go? Tonight’s meeting of the Escambia County School Board will be held at the J.E. Hall at 30 E. Texar Drive. The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m.
Join Relay For Life; Team Captain Meeting Tonight
March 17, 2009
A Century Relay for Life team captain’s meeting will be held this evening, and event organizers want you to know there is still time to form a team.
Teams are needed now, not just from Century, but from areas like Walnut Hill, Bratt, Molino, McDavid and Flomaton.
The American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life raises fund for out community that go towards research, prevention, treatment, education, advocacy and patient services.
“This is a way to CELEBRATE those who have fought cancer and won. This is a way to REMEMBER those who have fought cancer and lost. This is a way to FIGHT BACK against a disease that has touched all of us in one way or another,” a Relay for Life release reads.
You can help with Relay by creating a team to raise funds, buy a track marker with your message, purchase a luminaria in honor or memory of someone, or just come out to the event and have fun.
The team captain’s meeting will be held at 6:30 this evening in the cafeteria at Carver/Century K-8 School.
For more information, contact Paula Jernigan, event chair, at 256-3842, or B.J. Davis at 475-0850 ext. 2280. Or, you can visit centuryrelay.com
Century’s Relay for Life will begin April 25.