School Closures, Rezoning On The Table As Escambia School District Begins “Right-Sizing” Process
September 13, 2026
Escambia County Public Schools will begin committee meetings this month to “right size the district,” which could lead to realigning or rezoning some schools while closing others.
The School Attendance Zone Advisory Committee (SAZAC) will hold its first meeting on September 24 at the Vernon McDaniel Building on Pace Boulevard. The committee is tasked with making formal recommendations to the school board, likely by December, regarding school boundary realignments, rezoning, and potential facility closures or consolidations.
The December deadline is not set in stone. “That is our goal. We won’t rush it,” Superintendent Keith Leonard said.
“It’s going to be a difficult process, but it is one that is much needed,” District 5 Board Member Tom Harrell said. “We’ve got to right size our system. We have a lot of things that need to be looked at. We have facilities where we have fewer students, and others where we have more that need to be right sized.”
District 1 Board Member Kevin Adams recalled serving on a past SAZAC committee that oversaw the closing of Woodham High School and recommended the closure of about a dozen more. He noted that while facility closures are emotionally challenging and draw intense public crowd turnouts, the district must “right-size” its layout because the Chief Financial Officer can only balance declining funds for so long.
Adams stressed that options include attendance zone shifts and facility repurposing rather than outright closures, aiming to keep students with the public school system.
“I’ve already got parents telling me you can do whatever you want to do, but don’t move my child,” Harrell said. “Those type things happen, and the community and this board and the committee will work through that and come up with the right resolution for this district.
“We’ve got to do this,” Harrell added. He suggested that the committee design a multi-year right sizing strategy, enacting the largest facility and administrative cuts in the first year, followed by smaller adjustments in years two and three. He noted that the committee’s work will not impact the current budget cycle but will govern the following fiscal year.
“It is going to impact the services we give to kids,” District 3 Board Member David Williams, former principal of Pensacola High School, said. “Kids will be hurt by decisions we make.”
Williams said services for the district’s best and brightest students in high-level academic courses could be affected; if enrollment drops significantly in specialized high school tracks, low class sizes could force the elimination of advanced classes under class-size reduction mandates.
Leonard pledged to deliver a formal, written action plan, a “charge for action” in September, that outlines a clear path for the SAZAC committee and the school board. The plan’s top priority will be maintaining academic momentum while balancing fiscal realities. He promised that once the plan is presented to the board, he and his staff will personally visit all five school board districts to present the strategy to citizens and directly address community feedback.
“I will make sure that we have done some town hall meetings,” he said. “The way I believe we should do that is in each district and provide the citizens the opportunity to hear that presentation and then provide feedback and give their thoughts and ideas as well.”
“I will go to each zone. That is a promise,” Leonard told the school board.
The SAZAC (pronounced “say-Zack”) will meet at 6 p.m. on Thursday, September 24, at the Vernon McDaniel Building at 75 North Pace Boulevard.
Cantonment Man Sentenced In Child Abuse Case
September 13, 2026
A Cantonment man was recenthly sentenced in an April 2026 case in which he allegedly threatened a woman and forced her vehicle off the road with a child inside.
Colton David Gideons, 27, pleaded no contest to charges of child abuse without great bodily harm, simple assault domestic-violence-related, and reckless driving. An additional charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon was dropped.
He was sentenced to six months of community control followed by 30 months of probation on the child abuse charge, along with six months’ probation on the assault and reckless driving charges to run concurrently with the child abuse sentence.
Gideons was also ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation, complete a domestic violence intervention program, and pay court costs and fines. The judge ordered that any contact with minors be controlled by a domestic violence injunction order, and all future child care and custody arrangements be arranged by a disinterested third party, not family or friends.
On April 11, Escambia County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a disturbance on Canal A Way in Perdido Key. An Escambia County Sheriff’s Office arrest report states Gideons lunged at a woman with a closed fist at a residence in Cantonment, stopping just inches from her face while making verbal threats, before following her to Perdido Key.
As the woman attempted to leave the residence in a truck, Gideons followed her aggressively in his own brown Dodge Ram truck, the report states. Gideons accelerated past her, swerved into her path, and slammed on his brakes. This maneuver caused the woman to lose control and spin her vehicle around in the roadway with a child in the vehicle.
The victim recorded the pursuit on her phone, which deputies noted in the report showed Gideons’ truck passing her very closely and causing her to spin out.