Education:
In July, when the Escambia County School Board announced the formation of a School Attendance Zone Advisory Committee (SAZAC), it said the committee would look at “right-sizing the school district,” which could include closing some schools and realigning others.
- Board Chair Tom Harrell told News Journal: “It’s going to be a difficult process, but it’s much needed…We have a lot of things that need to be looked at…The whole process is going to take some time.”
- Superintendent Keith Leonard said, “We won’t rush it, we’ll do everything that we need to do.”
Despite this statement, the district administration took a short-cut and made the closure decisions before the committee ever met.
The Escambia County School District has already decided to close Warrington Elementary and Lincoln Park Elementary. The citizen committee formed to right-size the district has been asked to figure out where those students go.
Walker Wilson, chairman of the Student Attendance Zone Advisory Committee (SAZAC), said on Rick’s Blog Live that the assignment is narrower than he expected.
“I guess I thought in my head maybe there would be more to the committee than us just rezoning.”
The numbers behind the move
Wilson said the district has lost about 7,000 students over five to six years, roughly 20 percent of its enrollment. They left for vouchers, homeschooling, private schools or moved out of the area. At about $9,100 per student, the decline cost the district more than $7 million in revenue this school year alone.
- What Wilson expected. Wilson, a former school board candidate and a product of Escambia public schools, said he understood a SAZAC to look at the system as a whole. That could mean combining schools, adding K-8 programs to boost enrollment or placing magnet programs in underused buildings.
What the panel got. Shawn E. Dennis, assistant superintendent of operations, told the committee that district’s decision to close Lincoln Park and Warrington elementary schools.
- Both Warrington and Lincoln Park have fewer than 300 students. A third, much smaller school serving special needs students is also in the mix. Wilson said closing schools with such low enrollment is probably unsustainable to avoid, but he questioned whether two closures solve the larger problem.
Last month, the school district reported nearly 799 fewer students than it did on Sept. 1, 2025. The impact of the budget is about $7.3 million.
Different Process in 2026
When School Superentindent Jim Paul led the last major effort 20 years ago, a 13-member panel met for about eight months. It recommended closing Woodham High School and Brentwood, Brownsville and Wedgewood middle schools.
Dennis served as the SAZAC facilitator in 2006 and praised the committee, according to an article published in News Journal on Oct. 31, 2006.
- “What you’ve done is rock solid and airtight,” Dennis he told the committee members.
Committee spokesperson Cindy Gerhardt said, “We have done what we can with what have and what was within our charge. From the beginning, we knew it wasn’t going to be perfect.”
Questions
Why has the school district excluded SAZAC from studying and recommending which schools should be closed?
When did school officials make the decision? Before or after the August primary?
