Education initiative begins and ends with debate

Council vote splits 3-2 for Apopka Begins and Ends with an A

The Apopka City Council voted 3-2 to approve Mayor Joe Kilsheimer's education initiative "Apopka Begins and Ends with an A" at the Wednesday meeting, but it wasn't without a spirited, sometimes contentious debate. The Council split, with Commissioners Kyle Becker and Diane Velazquez joining Kilsheimer to vote in favor of the program, while Commissioners Doug Bankson and Billie Dean voted against it.

Apopka Begins and Ends with an A is a program designed to help local schools improve their state-based grades through a technique of facilitating the activities of Community Action Teams (CATs) at Rock Springs and Lovell Elementary Schools. These CAT teams discuss issues at their specific schools, and seek solutions to those issues. The City partnered with The City of Life Foundation to put the program in action.

For the 2016-2017 school year, a planned expansion adds CAT teams to Apopka, Lakeville, Phillis Wheatley and Zellwood Elementary schools as well as continuing at Rock Springs and Lovell.

Dean had significant reservations with the program, and came with specific questions for Kilsheimer.

"I was an educator for almost 40 years," Dean said. "I support schools, but I need some verification on this project. First thing is where is the accountability of this project?"

"The accountability is here," said Kilsheimer. "It's right here with us. That's where the accountability is."

"And what are the measurable outcomes?" Dean asked. "How do we know it's working?"

"Well, the program is entering its second year, and the outcomes that were reported in the report submitted in July... which was distributed to the Council and then again at our last workshop meeting," said Kilsheimer. "There have been a number of significant outcomes at the two schools that we started the program with. We intend to start the program this month with the additional schools and at the end of the school year, that's when City of Life will produce another report telling the Council what the outcomes are at that time."

Dean continued his questions with an observation of the schools being funded.

"All of the schools we're supporting are Title 1 schools, which receive beaucoup (French for a lot of) bucks. So why are we using taxpayer's money to do something that the government and Orange County should be doing? We could use that money for Little League."

"We've answered that question on a number of occasions," Kilsheimer said. "And my answer continues to be that from my perspective one of the things that the City of Apopka can do that will benefit us greatly for years to come is to move the community to broadly embrace schools as a community-wide theme to lift the perception of Apopka schools, so that the Apopka schools are on par with other schools in Central Florida."

"I'm also concerned that this is just a political ploy," said Dean. "And if you recall as I recall...One Apopka for Progress was a political campaign, you said."

"I never campaigned for One Apopka for Progress," Kilsheimer said.

"You may not have said it, but did you authorize it?" Dean asked.

"When we had a resolution that endorsed that phrase I voted against it," Kilsheimer responded.

Dean moved on to an issue that troubles him more than what the initiative covers - graduation rates.

"What I can gather from reading and doing research is a lot of our students are not graduating for the simple reason that they are getting kicked out of the public schools and put into what I call "baby-sitting schools" like Sheeler High School on 436. Now what is the organization doing about this?"

"The Community Action Teams are made up of parents, teachers, administrators and business leaders who sit down on a monthly basis and discuss the challenges in their school and what prevents it from improving its grade," Kilsheimer said. "Now at Rock Springs Elementary one of the things we learned is that all of the testing is done on computers, and the 800 students at Rock Springs get 30 minutes per week access time to computers. As a result of the discussion, the principal at Rock Springs is establishing three new computer labs so that the students get greater access during the school week. In addition to that, students that live at the Rock Springs Mobile Home Park, which is a socio-economically depressed community... that mobile home park has agreed to host a computer lab in the clubhouse and a local business has agreed to donate the computers. So those students have access that they never would have had. That never would have happened... that measurable result... if it weren't for the CAT-led discussion that took place about the issues at Rock Springs Elementary."

Dean continued his questioning by asking Kilsheimer about his involvement with and knowledge of The City of Life Foundation.

"Not to be facetious or embarrass you, but were you at one time on this foundation?" Dean asked.

"At one time I was the unpaid Board Chairman," Kilsheimer said.

"So you know the guy spearheading this organization?" Dean asked.

"I know these people, yes," said Kilsheimer "Which is why if you step back and ask what does Apopka need to be successful, improving the reputation of Apopka's schools would directly lead to the improvement of economic development."

Becker agreed with Kilsheimer on many of his points.

"Investment in education is well spent," he said. "About a year ago we heard from the CAT teams and the principals from each school and all of them praised the success of the program. I think the program has bared fruit, it's just a question of did we plant apple trees and get oranges? What are we truly trying to accomplish out of the program? And I think we've made those points very clear to The City of Life and I look forward to them giving us comprehensive goals. For me, for the 2016-17 fiscal budget, it's something I support. And I know it may not be the most popular decision with everybody in the room, but it's one I support and I have since we started talking about it."

Velazquez pointed to the amount of students that this program could help.

"With six schools and about 700 students per school... you're talking about 4,200 students. And that's a lot of students that we're impacting with this program. And there have been positive results with the CAT teams. So again we are impacting 4,200 kids. I support this."

Bankson on the other hand applauds the effort of the Foundation, but not the use of Apopka's taxpayer dollars.

"I agree with the objective. I see the value. But I don't agree with the process," he said. "And I've said this from the very beginning. To me these are taxpayer dollars, and I work for them. You have people who are taxed who don't even have kids in school, and they are taxed for schools already. And so to increase that... I get reflection from the community who say this isn't right. Part of the issue is that we're taking tax dollars that were meant to go elsewhere such as the park. We could fund both of these parks for that amount of money. These are things that would benefit all and are open to all. Again not to contradict the value. I think it's a great slogan. I really do. I think that it can be utilized by the Foundation, but I don't want to see it go through our tax dollars."

Kilsheimer thanked the Council for the spirited discussion, and made his final remarks before they voted.

"We spent a million dollars on the UCF Incubator with no result. A million dollars. And the total amount we've spent on Apopka Begins and Ends with an A is $20,000 last year and $35,000 this year, plus $9,500 from the Duke Energy Foundation, which sees the value of the program. So much less investment, but it's an effort and an initiative to move the needle forward. If we leave education to itself, if the City of Apopka does nothing, we are at the whim of whatever happens. But if we put an oar in the water and we try to steer towards a common goal, and we move the needle, well that's a story.