In letter on her official letter, State Rep. Michelle Salzman has requested the Escambia County School Superintendent Tim Smith resign, stating, “Every day that we prolong this transition to new leadership there is a child who is bullied, a child who drops out, a child who attempts suicide, a child who loses hope.”
She states that she has begged Smith to take action on workforce development, help with her Mental Health Task Force and expand access to magnet schools for military families, and he has failed to do it.
However, Salzman isn’t ready to support a return to elected superintendent.
“As a leader who strongly supported the appointed superintendent referendum, I always promised my community I would be the first to admit my mistake if the appointed model did not work,” says Rep. Salzman. “Having said that, we have only had one appointment. Before I will support changing the appointed model back to elected, the school board needs to hire a leader who can make progress in the district that will bring trust back into the process, empower our parents and our teachers, as well as provide true community collaboration in our schools.”
Here is the complete text:
This letter serves as a request from my office to the Appointed Superintendent, Dr. Tim Smith, to resign from his current office. Per the employment contract (page 10, section 12E), Dr. Smith would submit this request with a 90-day notice. This notice, if written in the next couple of weeks, would fall in line with the annual review/renewal timeframe for the school board (every June) as well as allow for our Dr. Smith to complete the 2022-2023 school year.
I have had dozens of meetings with various stakeholders and members of our community, to include Dr. Smith, and this request should be no surprise. For twenty years I have selflessly served Escambia County. Further, since elected as State Representative, I have continued my work with our community leaders in education. My first few months in office in 2020 I made it a priority to meet with our newly appointed Superintendent along with commissioners, ECUA representatives, community leaders, base Commanders, parents, teachers and others. I shared my concerns with each of them regarding several ongoing issues in our district. Some of these concerns included: Warrington Middle School grades, military student access to magnet schools, student discipline, Escambia Children’s Trust, workforce development and mental health/wellbeing of the children.
On several occasions I offered every resource available to create pathways to success for our students in this community. I provided everything except a signature from our school district. From Triumph dollars, to workforce development partnerships guaranteeing jobs for our graduates, to the Mental Health Task Force’s
(who’s sole purpose is to CONNECT resources and collaborate) call to action for the school district to expand it’s footprint to the families in our community, as well as the access to magnet schools for our military families. The list goes on and on, where the community leaders alongside me have literally begged in some cases for our superintendent to take action and he has failed.
This failure is one that the community must own. Dr. Smith’s inability to be effective is not solely on him. Dr. Smith is an incredible educator, a great statesman and I believe to be a wonderful human being. But, it is not the duty of a Superintendent to be any of those things first. It is their duty to lead our school district. The call to change the district’s position on elected vs appointed back to elected is merely a statement that our elected school board cannot as a majority make the decision to terminate the contract. As a leader who strongly supported the appointed superintendent referendum, I always promised my community I would be the first to admit my mistake if the appointed model did not work. Having said that, we have only had one appointment. Before I will support changing the appointed model back to elected, the school board needs to hire a leader who can make progress in the district that will bring trust back into the process, empower our parents and our teachers, as well as provide true community collaboration in our schools. Every day that we prolong this transition to new leadership there is a child who is bullied, a child who drops out, a child who attempts suicide, a child who loses hope. We cannot stall any longer. For the sake of our children’s future in Escambia County, we must have a true leader. If our school board as a majority cannot make this choice for our children, I am asking Dr. Smith to make it for them. Save the taxpayers the time and effort, but most importantly, save our children.
Sincerely,
Representative Salzman
I think this is about establishing accountable leadership for our school’s failures. For example, when our schools fail under elected leadership, accountability is distributed among the 100,000 or so voters. But if the School Board’s hire is accountable, then the heat is on them. Which is what we are seeing now. Seems to me that our focus should be on the School Board’s reactions to the pressure from the State. And it’s not just from Michelle, but also from our State Senator, the State Board of Ed and the Governor, and others. What will Kevin Adams and our School Board do next? How will they lead us to a higher standard? Or can they?
Representative Salzman was the face of the appointed superintendent referendum so it’s going to be a lot of mud on her if voters in her own District 1 vote to return to an elected superintendent. She was one of only three people who funded the “Yes for Escambia Schools” political committee. As she writes here mostly praising herself, the real issue that comes to mind is why a lady who works in Tallahassee feels she has a right to bully the school board and superintendent on a local issue. Who put her in charge of all of Escambia County? Salzman also writes, “Dr. Smith’s inability to be effective is not solely on him.” Who else is she blaming? Be specific. Here is something that Salzman can do. She can write the Florida Attorney General and ask Attorney General Moody to investigate why Escambia County has refused to return to at-large county elections not just for the school board but for the county commission and ECUA too. If Salzman really thinks that elected school superintendents are so horrible, or if she is being told to say that, then she should propose legislation to abolish them all in Florida. When we have the great debate in WSRE studios, the three ringleaders for an appointed superintendent (Studer, Reeves, Salzman) should face off against the three elected school superintendents in Santa Rosa County, Okaloosa County and Walton County in the best position to make “that” case.