Parents are rising up to challenge Superintendent Malcolm Thomas’ push to close the Program for Academically Talented Students (PATS) Center. A online petition has been started that already has 111 signatures.
Parents are planning to show up at the Feb. 17 Escambia School Board Regular Meeting–5:30 p.m. Hall Center, 30 E. Texar Drive–to voice their disapproval. On the petition page on change.org, organizers are asking concerned citizens to write the superintendent and school board members.
The Escambia County School District’s PATS program is an Exceptional Student Education initiative (ESE). ESE programs in Florida are given additional funding from the state to teach special needs and gifted children. According to FDOE, Escambia County’s ESE Guaranteed Allocation for 2014-15 was $13,850,153.
Over the past couple years. the District has gradually decreased the center’s enrollment by establishing less extensive gifted programs in individual schools. Now that the enrollment is down to only 333, district officials want to shutdown the facility and say that they will set up gifted programs at all its elementary and middle schools.
Sounds good, right? The problem is the inner-city schools with larger minority and poorer students don’t have enough currently gifted students to establish an in-school PATS program. Students at Montclair, C.A. Weis, and O.J. Semmes might have to bused to other schools to attend a gifted program.
Mollye Barrows at Pensacola Today has been covering this story – “PATS Center debate is heating up.”
Keep an eye on this story. Malcolm Thomas rarely changes a decision once it has been made. Will the school board support him?
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The other school to watch is Oakcrest Elementary. Thomas wants to sell the nearby Brownsville Middle (closed since 2007) to a scrap yard with a huge shredder. Increasing the footprint of the company–that is battling several environmental lawsuits from residents in the area–could signal the end of that school.