The founder of Jaqueline Harris Preparatory Academy, Celestine Lewis, nearly scooped up the Gibson School at yesterday’s school board meeting. The board eventually approved the sale to the City of Pensacola with a 3-2 vote, with David Williams and Carissa Bergosh dissenting.
“Our building is up for sale,” Lewis said. “I know I have been and retired 30 years, have been running Jacqueline Harris for 24 years, and this coming school year will be 25. Johnny Gibson is a school I attended. We would like to develop that building, keep the structure there. I would like for it to be the home of Jacqueline Harris Preparatory Academy. I think the citizens of Pensacola would like to see that happen. I saw our chairman back in the back. I can’t believe that, whatever negotiation that you have entered, this board would deny us the opportunity to continue because where we are now, we cannot make it.”
She offered the school board a letter of intent signed by her board chairman, David Alexander, “to renovate that property to have it a school for children.”
“John Gibson way back in the day, now we are African-American, but it was for colored children. I was a little colored girl there at 876 North C Street. And you need to tell me today that we cannot, if you own the building, you could say that we go there, we’ll pay you whatever you ask for it,” Lewis shouted from the microphone. “We have been looking for property, and a lot of you I’ve spoken to, this is dear to my heart, and I think it’ll be dear to this community’s heart. I don’t know what the city plans to do with it, but it needs to be there for children.”
She accused the School District of closing every school in the African American community. “I’m not talking race; I’m talking about a fact here today. I paid my taxes, I’ve worked hard, and from May now, to have been in an operation. I want to go back to C Street. I think you need to give me that opportunity.”
BACKGROUND: If Escambia County School Board had agreed to the sale the Gibson school to Lewis and/or her board, it would be the second public school she has bought.
In October 2002, the School Board agreed to sell its McReynolds school property, at 1408 E. Blount Street, to New Road to Learning (Jaqueline Harris Preparatory Academy)for its appraised value of $520,000. However, at close, Creative Projects (Lewis’ for-profit company) bought the site, and New Road to Learning signed a 10-year lease with Creative Projects for the McReynolds school and agreed to pay $10,000 per month.
Lewis suddenly had the funds for a Bayou Boulevard residence.
In March 2014, Durga Das Trust bought the McReynolds School from Creative Projects for $1,305,000 — $830,000 cash and a note for $475,000 due to Creative Projects. New Road to Learning would continue to pay rent to Durga Das Trust, including the three years after the charter moved to Pensacola Boulevard.
In March 2016, Lewis sold the Bayou Boulevard residence and began construction on a home in the Nature Trail subdivision.
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