Have your say at education town hall
- May 4, 2015
- / Mollye Barrows
- / video
Escambia County students have spent more than 15 years adjusting to a roller coaster of changes after former Gov. Jeb Bush implemented the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test to reform public schools in 1998.
The Studer Community Institute recently launched a series of education-themed stories looking at how Pensacola metro area schools fared as a result and what more needs to be done.
From the research, our staff identified three main issues that impact education in Escambia County: poverty, early education and workforce readiness.
What does that mean?
In short, we found poverty, and the social and economic challenges that come with it, affect how prepared students are to learn and their ability to make the most of their educational opportunities.
While there are numerous bright spots in the Escambia School District, the reality is that 20-25 percent of our 4-year-olds aren’t ready for kindergarten, a number that has seen little fluctuation in decades. Our high school graduation rate is hovering around 65 percent.
If we as a community want to improve education, we need to have an honest conversation about the issues. If we want to attract new companies offering lucrative wages, we need to prepare the educated workforce they want.
[caption id="attachment_22621" align="alignright" width="300"]
The Studer Community Institute's town hall on education airs live at 8 p.m. on May 5.[/caption]
That is why the Institute is hosting the education town hall at BlabTV from 8 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday.
It is a continuation of a conversation we started with the Pensacola Education Report and brought to our community’s biggest employers.
We sat down with representatives from the top five employers in Escambia County to tape a roundtable discussion on the issues.
At the table were:
— Malcolm Thomas, Escambia Schools Superintendent.
— Debbie Calder, executive vice president of Greater Pensacola Operations for Navy Federal Credit Union.
— Darlene Stone, vice president and chief human resources officer for Baptist Health Care.
— Carol Carlan, president of Sacred Heart Hospital’s Foundation.
— Carissa Bergosh, school liaison officer for Pensacola Naval Air Station and former Escambia School Board member.
We also invited Dr. Martha Saunders, University of West Florida provost and executive vice president and Dr. Ed Meadows, president of Pensacola State College.
We talked for nearly two hours about what these employers see when former Escambia County students apply for a job and what businesses can do to help prepare students for the workforce.
“The talent in the hiring pool is tremendous now,” Calder said. “We’re getting 1,200 to 1,500 applicants a month. Finding that needle in the haystack isn’t hard, but what about when we grow to 10,000 employees?”
Still, Stone says many applicants she sees at Baptist aren’t prepared for the hiring process.
“What we’re seeing with entry-level positions is just a lack of soft skills,” Stone said. “It’s the ability to have a one-on-one conversation and look eye-to-eye. Some of them don’t have any idea how to come in and fill out an online application and those kind of job skills.”
More than 62 percent of Escambia’s 40,000 students qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. Saunders said as a community, “we are only as strong as the least among us.”
Carlan echoed those sentiments.
“We see this every day in the doors of Sacred Heart,” she said. “Mothers on drugs, that number is increasing every day. So you have to stop and think, how do you get to that population and show them hope?”
The roundtable panelists will be back Tuesday in the BlabTV studio for the town hall, where we will break down the issues and hear from other experts on the importance of early education, the impact poverty has on students, and the successes that career academies can offer students.
We will take your comments and questions on social media during the event.
Thomas will be unable to attend the town hall, but he agrees it will take the entire community to change the culture.
“Poverty is a symptom,” he said. “I used to talk an awful lot about, it’s poverty, poverty. I’ve really changed my tune the last couple of years. Now I’m talking about a culture of low expectation.
“There are pockets in our community that don’t expect to do any better than they are currently doing. That is the problem.”
The town hall is an opportunity for a real conversation about the roots of Escambia County’s challenges.
If we as a community don’t find ways to bring up struggling families, then Escambia will not grow to its full potential.
We will continue to have overcrowded jails, instead of overcrowded classrooms. We will continue to create jobs for social service agencies, rather than providing lucrative jobs for an educated workforce.
Let’s be good neighbors. Let’s create a community that makes success an achievable goal for every student.
Join the conversation.
The Studer Community Institute's town hall on education airs live at 8 p.m. on May 5.[/caption]
That is why the Institute is hosting the education town hall at BlabTV from 8 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday.
It is a continuation of a conversation we started with the Pensacola Education Report and brought to our community’s biggest employers.
We sat down with representatives from the top five employers in Escambia County to tape a roundtable discussion on the issues.
At the table were:
— Malcolm Thomas, Escambia Schools Superintendent.
— Debbie Calder, executive vice president of Greater Pensacola Operations for Navy Federal Credit Union.
— Darlene Stone, vice president and chief human resources officer for Baptist Health Care.
— Carol Carlan, president of Sacred Heart Hospital’s Foundation.
— Carissa Bergosh, school liaison officer for Pensacola Naval Air Station and former Escambia School Board member.
We also invited Dr. Martha Saunders, University of West Florida provost and executive vice president and Dr. Ed Meadows, president of Pensacola State College.
We talked for nearly two hours about what these employers see when former Escambia County students apply for a job and what businesses can do to help prepare students for the workforce.
“The talent in the hiring pool is tremendous now,” Calder said. “We’re getting 1,200 to 1,500 applicants a month. Finding that needle in the haystack isn’t hard, but what about when we grow to 10,000 employees?”
Still, Stone says many applicants she sees at Baptist aren’t prepared for the hiring process.
“What we’re seeing with entry-level positions is just a lack of soft skills,” Stone said. “It’s the ability to have a one-on-one conversation and look eye-to-eye. Some of them don’t have any idea how to come in and fill out an online application and those kind of job skills.”
More than 62 percent of Escambia’s 40,000 students qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. Saunders said as a community, “we are only as strong as the least among us.”
Carlan echoed those sentiments.
“We see this every day in the doors of Sacred Heart,” she said. “Mothers on drugs, that number is increasing every day. So you have to stop and think, how do you get to that population and show them hope?”
The roundtable panelists will be back Tuesday in the BlabTV studio for the town hall, where we will break down the issues and hear from other experts on the importance of early education, the impact poverty has on students, and the successes that career academies can offer students.
We will take your comments and questions on social media during the event.
Thomas will be unable to attend the town hall, but he agrees it will take the entire community to change the culture.
“Poverty is a symptom,” he said. “I used to talk an awful lot about, it’s poverty, poverty. I’ve really changed my tune the last couple of years. Now I’m talking about a culture of low expectation.
“There are pockets in our community that don’t expect to do any better than they are currently doing. That is the problem.”
The town hall is an opportunity for a real conversation about the roots of Escambia County’s challenges.
If we as a community don’t find ways to bring up struggling families, then Escambia will not grow to its full potential.
We will continue to have overcrowded jails, instead of overcrowded classrooms. We will continue to create jobs for social service agencies, rather than providing lucrative jobs for an educated workforce.
Let’s be good neighbors. Let’s create a community that makes success an achievable goal for every student.
Join the conversation.
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