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Community Rallies Behind Carver/Century In Effort To Keep School Open

June 11, 2008

About 70 Century residents rallied behind Carver/Century K-8 School at a public forum Tuesday night.

Escambia School Superintendent Jim Paul has discussed the possibility of closing the school to shave about $680,000 from the district’s budget, perhaps as early as this next school year.

But those that stood together in support of keeping their school open Tuesday night are hoping for at least one more year to continue to improve the failing school.

“We are going to go over the mountaintop with this thing,” Century Mayor Freddie McCall said of the community coming together to support the school. “All we need is another year from Mr. Paul.”

“No one in the history of the school district has ever written a position paper as to why their school should not be closed,” Rev. Irvin Stallworth, a member of the town’s blue ribbon committee to save the school, said. “But that is what we are going to do.”

He said that ideas collected by the committee at Tuesday night’s meeting will be considered when the blue ribbon committee meets over the weekend to draft a position paper in support of the school. That position paper is expected to be backed by the town council at their Monday night meeting, and then it will be presented to Paul.

“We are going to keep the school open, but we are going to make some changes,” Stallworth said. Those changes, he said, will include more community involvement in the school.

That was a common sentiment among those that spoke during the meeting in the Carver/Century cafeteria.

“I love this school,” former principal Mary Watson (pictured left) said. “This school has put out some really outstanding students.”

“Some of our problem is that the parents are not as involved as they should be,” she said. She said that when she was principal at the school, she tried providing rides, door prizes and refreshments to lure parents to meetings, but most would not attend.

“The problem here is directly related to race. There is a division there,” Watson said. “It’s not just here (at Carver/Century), it’s all over the United States.”

But the biggest problem at Carver/Century, Watson said, has been the mass exodus of student leaving the F-rated Carver/Century for higher rated schools. If all those students returned, she said the school would be “busting at the seams”.

“I see the community as angry; they are not happy,” Jessie McCants (pictured left) said. She said she hears a “loud cry” in the community about its discipline problems and cultural differences.

“You are part of the solution to this problem, and I ask you today to take a stand,” McCants told the crowd.

Sharon Scott, a town council member and member of the blue ribbon committee, asked current principal Jeff Garthwaite if the school had a PTA. He replied that it does not.

“That’s the first thing we need to hop on,” Scott said. “We need a PTA.” She also said the school needs some type of incentive for parents to bring their students back to Carver/Century from other schools in the area such as Bratt and Molino Park elementaries.

Annie Savage agreed that a PTA is needed at the school. She said she has served as PTA or PTO president at least eight times during the school’s history, and she would be willing to serve again even though she no longer has children in the school. “Once a parent, always a parent,” she said.

“This came about because somebody could not balance their budget. Closing a school to balance a budget is ludicrous. The picked us because they thing we are uneducated, poor and most are black,” resident Terri Sanders said.

“Until we can put aside prejudice, as long as we are divided,” she said, “they can conquer us.”

“I will stand with Century to keep the school open,” Myra Simmons, a candidate for school superintendent said. “I believe children should stay in their neighborhood, close to their families.”

“We have to have something in Century to make people want to live here,” said John Hartman, a candidate for the District 5 seat on the Escambia County Commission. “One of the core things you’ve got to have for economic development is a school.”

“Go home and talk to your neighbors and get them involved,” McCall said.

“For me it is irrelevant why they want to close it,” Stallworth said. “We are going to work to keep it open.”

Pictured above: The community gathered at Carver/Century K-8 School Tueday night to support keeping the school open. Pictured below: Carver/Century Principal Jeff Garthwaite addresses the crowd. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under Education, News