Community To Rally Tonight In Support Of School

July 24, 2008

Century area residents will once again come together for a community meeting in support of Carver/Century K-8 School.

The meeting will be held at 6:30 tonight in the school cafeteria, and the public is invited to attend.

About 70 people attended the last Carver/Century community meeting back on June 10. At that time, Escambia School Superintendent Jim Paul was expected to recommend closing the school to save the district $680,000a year. In June, it looked like that closure could come as early as this school year. But Paul later said he would recommend closure of the school for the 2009-2010 school year at the school board’s July meeting, and that did not happen.

But Associate Superintendent Ronnie Arnold told NorthEscambia.com that Paul is now expected to recommend closure to the school board at their August 19 meeting. If that recommendation is approved, this school year would be the last for Carver/Century.

Many in Century hoped that the school would remain open after the Blackcat’s Florida Department of Education school grade improved from an “F” to a “B”.

But that will have no impact on Paul’s decision, according to Arnold.

“He (Paul) was very happy for the Carver/Century community for the ‘B’ the school received,” Arnold said of Carver/Century’s school grade. “The grade itself does not have a bearing on any potential closure recommendation.”

Arnold pointed out that Paul recommended the closure of Pensacola Beach Elementary School in 2001 despite of the school’s grade. In the 1999-2000 school year, Pensacola Beach Elementary was ranked as an “A” school with 100 percent of students scoring at grade level or above  on both the reading and math FCAT. In Pensacola Beach Elementary’s last year, 2000-2001, the school had slipped from an “A” to a “B” rating.

“He recommended the closure of Pensacola Beach Elementary in 2001 for many of the same reasons he would recommend the closure of Carver,” Arnold said of Paul’s recommendation. “Simply stated, it’s the cost-per-student to operate schools of such small population.”

Pictured above: The last community meeting held at Carver/Century K-8 School on June 10. NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under Archive