Buzz: No more new schools

According to my sources, the Escambia County School District Watchdog Committee was told yesterday that there will be no more new schools for awhile once…

Continue Reading

Blount’s Demolition Dollars

Local officials take another step today toward demolishing the old Blount School buildings. During the Escambia County Commission meeting this afternoon, commissioners will be considering…

Continue Reading

1:45: BYU vs. Marquette

Both teams lost their conference tournament finals. 3-seed Marquette lost to Louisville in the Big East tournament. BYU lost to Gonzaga in the WCC finals….

Continue Reading

Student in Central Fla humiliated for missing FCAT

Mother was “flipping mad” when her son had a sign placed around his neck that read: “‘I decided to come to school today, but I…

Continue Reading

Where has the growth been for elementary schools?

The enrollment of A.K. Suter Elementary School is the same that it was in October 2007 – 381 students (and remember the school picked up…

Continue Reading

FCAT Gets Feisty

Tensions rose last night at the District School Advisory Council meeting. It’s no surprise that the topic was FCAT. While students and teachers struggle through…

Continue Reading

Audits finds problems with School District and its handling of federal funds

Here is a story that the News Journal probably won’t print. The Federal Audit of the Escambia Public School District had major findings on how…

Continue Reading

Keep Reading

The IN has already reported on ECARE’s tutoring program and its good results (ricksblog.biz/good-report-card-for-ecare). It’s encouraging to see how a weekly 45 minute tutoring session…

Continue Reading

Buzz: Pastor May picks up packet to run for School Superintendent

Rev. Lutimothy May picked up this afternoon a packet from the Supervisor of Elections office to file for the Superintendent of Schools. May ran unsuccessfully…

Continue Reading

School Board to hear about natural gas buses

Six months after Mayor Ashton Hayward asked School Superintendent Malcolm Thomas to consider natural gas fueled buses, Thomas is finally presented the idea to the…

Continue Reading

Fine-tuning Suter numbers

A friend emailed me that, according to Ron Peacock – school district’s Director of Facilities Planning, the $21 million price tag for the new A.K….

Continue Reading

Library Closing, Beginning New Chapter

The West Florida Public Library’s main branch, located at 200 W. Gregory St. downtown Pensacola, will close temporarily in connection with the ongoing construction of…

Continue Reading

$21-million Suter project defies board policy and wasn’t planned

“Sal” wrote last Friday that the expansion of A.K. Suter Elementary has been in the works for years. He got me double-checking my research and…

Continue Reading

Help teachers teach

DonorsChoose.org grew out of a Bronx high school where teachers experienced first-hand the scarcity of learning materials in our public schools. Charles Best, then a…

Continue Reading

Oh, By the way

How many of you believe that it’s just a coincidence that two new schools that are being built are in the districts of school board…

Continue Reading

Only 52 percent of students at Suter Elementary live in attendance zone

Superintendent Malcolm Thomas and the Escambia County School Board want to replace A.K. Suter Elementary with a new $21-million facility–the most the district has ever…

Continue Reading

Florida Voices column gets attention

  FEATURED STORIES Parent trigger bill sparks fierce debate as vote nears By Leslie Postal Orlando Sentinel A proposal that could let parents decide the…

Continue Reading

Lincoln Park has largest enrollment increase

Lincoln Park Elementary has been on Superintendent Malcolm Thomas’ chopping block for nearly a year. The mistake he made this time was to tell parents,…

Continue Reading

Parent Triggering bill could destroy public education

My latest column for Florida Voices is on the proposed “parent triggering” bill, the crowning blow to a decade-long effort to take “public” out of…

Continue Reading

U.S. Dept. of Education finds huge racial disparities in public education

A report released today by the U.S. Department of Education has particular significance for Escambia County, in light of our cover story on such disparities…

Continue Reading