The Escambia County School District is struggling to reach an agreement with CharterUSA regarding Warrington Middle School before the May 1 deadline. Board chairman Paul Fetsko has called a special meeting at 8 a.m. on Friday, April 28, to discuss it.
Fetsko has been concerned with the changes that CharterUSA has proposed – including eventually making the school a K-12 academy that wouldn’t be obligated to enroll Warrington children – and the attitude of the State Board of Education.
On WCOA’s “Real News with Rick Outzen,” he pointed out that the Florida Department of Education has dictated how the school has been run for the past eight years.
“The state board and the DOE has all the power, all the control, gave all the directions, and with authority and power comes responsibility,” Fetsko said. “But they have neglected to assume any responsibility for the decisions they made instructionally at that school for eight years.”
He continued, “We, being Escambia County, were not permitted to run our own program. We had to follow what their directions were.”
For more on this story, read “Warrington Middle in Jeopardy.”
Need to fix a typo in the comment above, as it seems to point blame at Superintendent Smith, which was certainly not my intention:
“They [DeSantis’s fake education ministry frauds] are here for closing that school down, and always have been. You [Fetsko] and [your counterpart Adams], primarily, made it easy for them.”
These two hardly had to make it any easier than it already was, as running charades of this nature are second nature to Diaz, whose murky career is glossed over nicely on his official c.v.:
https://www.fldoe.org/about-us/commissioner.stml
NB the accreditation page of the online Charter college he CO’d for a decade after he took bankruptcy to the tune of over a million dollars in debt (not bad, for a social studies teacher):
https://www.doral.edu/Accreditation-Licensing#:~:text=Doral%20College%20is%20accredited%20by,Higher%20Education%20Accreditation%20(CHEA).
DeSantis placing our public schools in the hands of sideshow barkers is a tragedy with ramifications we’ve barely begun to glimpse. The last thing Warrington Middle needs is a two-bit school board member wallowing in self-pitying feels after taking successful aim at his own foot.
I could not stomach–literally–listening to this podcast one moment further than Paul Fetsko calling out his fellow GOP goons for unprofessionalism and putting on a–how do we say it–SHOW for others.
What, did you think that joining the knuckle draggers in the culture wars and putting on a show for white supremacists and LGBTQ bigots was going to gift you with anyone in DeSantis’s administration bailing you out? That’s not how those boys and girls play, Paul. Or maybe you’re just a little slow on the uptake that your political party has set out to destroy our public education system on every level, and is doing a damn fine job of it.
You and Adams didn’t want to deal with this problem during your re-election campaigns, so you all kicked the can down the road until the State didn’t even have to *try* to look like they weren’t hell bent on closing this school. And now you have the audacity to complain about the State’s program? You’ve been all about it up to this point–what, did you just wake up a couple of weeks ago and get a glimpse of your pre Anti-Woke Cult existence and remember what it was like to have some ethics and scruples?
Truly, I don’t know what was worse watching the tape on you and Tim Smith at the DOE, having to listen to that dilettante popinjay Diaz cosplay as an education expert, or witnessing you having *zero* idea that it wasn’t a meeting of the minds, or even an exchange of information, but a fascist tribunal who Does. Not. Care. what you have to say. They are here for closing that school down, and always have been. You and Fetsko, primarily, made it easy for them.
The Charter contract is horrendous, laughable, sickening, and utterly predictable. And speaking of shows, this whole thing is a charade, anyway. The State is going to do what they’re going to do with that school; the rest is just theater. Unless the timing is such that DeSantis gets a little nervous about being sued by Disney and starts throwing his administration under the bus earlier than expected, don’t expect this to get any better any time soon. While I have the utmost respect for the community leaders who stepped in to try to take the school board by the collar on this, as the necessity stemming from the ineptitude of the Dunder Twins sadly dictated, it became clear that even with their best efforts, the scenario is a lose lose if serving the current student population is one of the goals.
Paul is right about one thing, however hypocritical and opportunistic his message: if that school goes down–not to mention, our Base at some point–it won’t even be this school board to blame, at base, but the DeSantis administration and the Florida GOP in general–as with every other societal and economic misery being visited on the people of this state, which are at present too many to count. If the republicans on that school board would have had the courage to put students over their party from the very beginning, we might be having a very different conversation about Warrington Middle right now.
So you own this, Paul. When that first bus load of kids is staring out the window down the road twice a day, it ought to roll out on its inaugural tour with “Adams and Fetsko Tours” emblazoned on its sides.