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Tom Harrell, Candidate Escambia County School Board District 5
August 17, 2024
Current occupation:
Retired principal
Previous occupations
Business owner, teacher, assistant principal, principal, school district administrator on special assignment, adjunct instructor at Pensacola State College, math coach
Civic, church and other community involvement
NRA member, lifetime member of the PTA, former member of the Solutia Advisory Committee, Paul Harris Fellow Cantonment Rotary Club, Richard’s Memorial Methodist Church: former member -Church Council, President of Methodist Men, Chairman of Staff Parish Committee, former Principal of The Year Escambia School District, Former Teacher of The Year (Ransom Middle School), Recognized twice by the Escambia School Board for outstanding service.
Education
B. S. degree in Vocational Education from The University of West Florida
M. S. degree in Educational Administration from Troy State University
Ed. Specialist degree in Educational Leadership from The University of South Alabama
Master Teacher State of Florida
Selected for the first Principal’s Pool for the Escambia School District
My experience includes general ed, workforce education, ESE, and ranges from elementary through community.
Why are you running for the Escambia County School Board and what qualifies you for this position?
I am running for the Escambia School Board because I want to help make our School District one of the best in our state. I want to serve my community and bring my thirty-eight years of experience to the decision-making process on the School Board. I was a highly successful principal with a unique skill set. When I was principal, under my leadership, R. C. Lipscomb Elementary was a Five Star “A” school for ten straight years. This was the highest award given by the Florida Department of Education. Our test scores were among the highest in the state and nation. We had 100% parent and faculty PTA membership during my tenure. Forty-seven community business partners-in-education and over 23,000 volunteer hours each year. When I was District Administrator on Special Assignment, I developed the plan and provided the leadership that moved O. J. Semmes Elementary School from a double “F” to a “C” in seven months. Our School Board needs fresh innovative ideas to help both high performing schools and struggling schools. I believe my proven educational leadership skill set would be an asset to both the School Board and the community.
What are the three most important issues facing the Escambia County Public Schools?
Improving academic performance, discipline, attendance, graduation rate on time and teacher/employee salaries and retention.
We need to return to an elected superintendent. We should never have given up our right to vote for this position. At the appropriate time, I will make the motion to put elected superintendent on the ballot.
As long as we are in these hard economic times, I will not vote to raise your property taxes.
What is the school district going right at the current time, and what needs to be fixed?
We have a wonderful skilled and very adaptive workforce that has a great deal of institutional knowledge and experience. We need to do everything we can to keep our employees at all levels.
The Escambia School District has made considerable academic progress this past school year under the leadership of Keith Leonard. We now have no failing schools in our District. I commend Superintendent Leonard and all District employees for this great accomplishment but now we need to build upon this success.
Our Workforce Education Program is doing an excellent job as indicated by the number of industry certifications. We are getting more industry certifications than many of the larger school districts. It is important for our students to leave high school with job ready skills. We need to look closely at what is working in this area and increase student awareness of these opportunities.
How would you address teacher pay, recruiting and retention and attract and retain more qualified candidates to Escambia County?
Teacher and other employees’ salaries and benefits has to be set as a high budget priority.
We have to do a better job of creating trust and making employees feel valued.
I would support hiring bonuses for teachers and other employees in critical shortage areas.
When you create trust and make employees feel valued while improving salaries/benefits our employees will want to stay.
How do we address issues surrounding book challenges?
I will make sure inappropriate books are removed from our schools. I believe the reviews of books should take place by the committee up front before they are placed in our media centers and that a matrix should be used to with substantial community input.
Under no circumstances should our school be used for any type of indoctrination of students or staff.
I am a strong Christian conservative who would appoint like-minded individuals to book review committees. I am a strong anti-woke candidate.
How should cell phones/devices in schools be addressed?
In my opinion, cell phones/devices create a great deal of discipline problems. They contribute to bullying, fights and social targeting. I would start by supporting a policy that allowed student to have cell phones/devices in their backpacks for emergency use only. They could not use the phone/device except for well-defined emergencies.
What are the unique issues facing District 5 schools in Escambia County? What makes District 5 different?
District 5 is the largest geographically and is experiencing a tremendous amount of growth and development. Many of our schools have portables and are at maximum student capacity. We have to do a better job working with our county government to improve infrastructure in advance of development.
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