Page 3 - Florida Sentinel 11-3-17

Feature
NAACP To Meet With Administrators Over Failing Schools
BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor
In a letter dated October 16th, the Florida Department of Education issued an ulti- matum to the Hillsborough County Public School District. The letter gave the District a deadline of Friday, October 27th, (Phase 1) to provide the TOPs (Turnaround Option Plan) to be implemented into seven (7) failing schools.
The letter was signed by Florida Department of Edu- cation Chancellor of Public Schools, Hershel Lyons and sent to Jeff Eakins, Su- perintendent of the Hillsbor- ough County School District.
Ms. Yvette Lewis, Pres- ident of the Hillsborough County Branch of the NAACP said, “There are seven failing school in Hillsborough County. The schools are in predominately African Amer- ican communities. The seven schools have been failing for years. It is time for Hillsbor- ough County School District
to answer to the community. “The NAACP has re- quested a special meeting with Hillsborough County School District. The parents, the students and the commu- nity need to know; what hap- pened, who is responsible, and how did we get here. Most important, what is next for our students in these fail-
ing schools?”
The special meeting will
be held Monday, November 6th at 6 pm. It will take place at Learey Center, 5410 N. 20th St., Tampa 33610.
Ms. Lewis is requesting that members of the commu- nity attend the meeting and share their comments about the failing schools.
The letter stated that the “district must select one of the three options to be imple- mented during the 2018-2019 school year:
“1. Close the school, trans- fers the students to a higher performing school(s) and monitor the students for a three-year period;
MS. YVETTE LEWIS President, Hillsborough County Branch NAACP
“2. Close the school and reopen the school as one or more charter schools, with a governing board that has a demonstrated record of effec- tiveness; or
“3. Contract with an out- side entity that has a demon- strated record of effectiveness to operate the school; this may include a district-man- aged charter school in which all instructional personnel are not employees of the school district, but are not employ-
ees of the school district, but are employees of an inde- pendent governing board comprised of members who did not participate in the re- view or approval of the char- ter.”
The ultimatum pertains to the turnaround options for the following seven schools: Foster Elementary, Mort Ele- mentary, Oak Park Elemen- tary, Potter Elementary, Sheehy Elementary, and B. T. Washington Elementary Schools. Memorial Middle
Meeting
School is the only secondary school on this list.
During the last grading period, Foster, Mort Oak Park, Sheehy, and Memorial all received a “D.” Potter and B. T. Washington received an “F.” The state’s order man- dates that all of the grades for these seven schools be raised to at least a “C” grade by the end of the school year.
The deadline of November 15, 2017, was issued to submit a signed TOPs plan (Phase 2), of the order.
East Hillsborough Heights Neighborhood Crime Watch Meeting
The East Hillsborough Heights Neighborhood Crime Watch last meeting of the year will be held on Monday, No- vember 13, 2017, 6:30-7:30 p. m. at the Fair Oaks Community Center.
The special guest will be the Florida Dept. of Transporta- tion to speak on the 40th Street project.
For more information, contact Regina Virgil, (813) 239- 3460.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2017 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY PAGE 3-A