Manatee County School Board candidates sound off

Manatee County School Board District 1 candidates answer questions for the East County Observer.

Xtavia Bailey 

Age: 37

Hometown: Born in Bridgeport, Conn. Lived in Manatee County since 9 years old.

Occupation: Business owner

Family: Married to Edward Bailey; Daughter, Amara, 14; and son Edward Bailey Jr., 12.

About: Xtavia Bailey has taught middle school through a life skills program for at-risk yought;  and has sat on several boards within the school district budget, including operations and land and facilities. She also is a board member of the Manatee County Humane Society and the Children's Service Advisory Board.

Several schools are at or over capacity. How can you as a board member have an impact?

My impact would be to implement a policy. I could suggest a percentage cap. This will allow schools to be filled to a certain percentage, leaving room for neighborhood students and growth. I support choice, but we must make sure there are not more students in a class than the law allows. Our choice has gotten out of control. We must monitor it without breaking the law that has been implemented. 

Do you think elementary schools need school resource officers?

Yes, I think resource officers are (a) good presence in the schools. Students are easily able to open up to an officer in a school, because they trust them. It can also alleviate a lot of issues because of the presence of law enforcement. It also depends on if data has been reviewed and the school’s disciplinary actions has warrant that there is possibly an issue that could arise due to the type of disciplinary actions in the school’s history. If not, then an officer should not be placed in that particular school. 

Manatee County Schools got a mixed bag for grades this year. How do you think county schools are performing academically?

Manatee County is No. 48 in the state, and Sarasota is No. 6. We must keep investing in our schools and teachers so that our students will be successful. There were 11 Title I schools that came up by one letter grade. This means those schools are doing much better. We must do better across the entire district. Every school should be achieving above average across our district, no matter what area the school is in. 

If the half-cent sales tax is renewed, are there specific needs you believe it should be used to address? 

We must implement raises for our teachers, not just a raise but above the national reporting average. We also need new schools and major renovations for our schools that need to be fixed, a new-teacher mentoring program and better technology for our students in the classroom. Investing in education is something that Sarasota has mastered, so it has more money than we do to spend on our students. 

Gina Messenger

Age: 29

Hometown: Bradenton

Occupation: Former public school teacher, current stay-at-home mom

Family: Married with one daughter

About: My grandmother was an educator for many years in Manatee County, and she helped my parents instill a love of learning in me. After receiving my degree in education from the University of Central Florida, I embarked on the challenge that is teaching in Title I, low-income, public schools. Throughout my years of teaching, mentoring, and leading, I discovered how important education is, especially for low-income children. Through education, families can grow out of poverty. 

Several schools are at or over capacity. How can you as a board member have an impact?

First, since we have school choice, we need to implement better magnet programs at underutilized schools. With better programs in place, parents may choose to send their children there, which could help with overcrowding. The second issue we need to focus on is building or adding onto existing schools. With all of the growth scheduled to happen, Parrish desperately needs a high school.

Do you think elementary schools need school resource officers?

Growing up here in Manatee County, my schools always had resource officers that taught DARE. As I a teacher, the schools I have taught in always had resource officers. I think having a resource officer can be a vital tool is used properly, meaning, we should use them to help teach our students prevention programs.

Manatee County Schools got a mixed bag for grades this year. How do you think county schools are performing academically?

I think there is room for improvement. We did see an improvement in our third-grade reading scores, but we are still far below the state’s average. One of the reasons I have chosen to run in this race is because I was a public school teacher, and I know firsthand what it takes to have successful classes and schools. We need an educator who can discern what is best for our schools so that we may improve.

If the half-cent sales tax is renewed, are there specific needs you believe it should be used to address? 

If the tax were to pass, we should reinstate an oversight committee. An oversight committee could assure the board and the taxpayers that all money is properly accounted for. If the tax is renewed, we absolutely need to focus on retaining great teachers. We should also focus on repairing and replacing some existing schools. For example: Tillman and Oneco.

What are the other top three issues the district faces?

1. We need to ensure we have a larger allowance left over at the end of the year. The state requires a 3% fund balance, but we should aim higher, closer to 5%. We can bring more stability to our school district with a little extra money in the bank.

2. Our school district needs to retain our teachers. One of the reasons we see declining scores is because we cannot keep our teachers. Our teachers are leaving for neighboring counties because we cannot offer them competitive pay and benefits.

3. The school district’s self-pay medical plan is costing us a lot of money. I would support investigating other options that may supply comparable benefits that are more cost-effective.

Linda Schaich

Age: 73

Hometown: Bradenton

Occupation: Retired

Family: One son; four step-children

Several schools are at or over capacity. How can you as a board member have an impact?

While there are some schools over capacity, there are more that are under capacity.  

Taxpayers paid $50,000 for a report by expert consultants called Tischler-Bise, and they state that overall, our middle and elementary schools are at 83% capacity. This same report stated that we presently have 5,500 empty student stations. In the next 10 years, we will need two middle and two elementary schools. Presently, we do need one high school in Parrish. The district is delaying this project to put pressure on taxpayers to pass the sales tax.

Do you think elementary schools need school resource officers?

Some elementary schools would benefit from school resource officers if for no other reason than they need to have positive interaction with persons of authority. In many of the schools, their issues could be handled by staff.

Manatee County Schools got a mixed bag for grades this year? How do you think county schools are performing academically?

Manatee schools are once again on a downward spiral academically. In the last two years, in spite of receiving more than $25 million in additional funding, our district grade dropped from a “B” to a “C”.  This year, we experienced 16 schools go down a letter grade and only nine go up; last year we had 17 down and six up. This is an alarming trend. Where is the strategic plan to ensure that the programs are being tracked and analyzed for effectiveness?

If the half-cent sales tax is renewed, are there specific needs you believe it should be used to address? 

I advise voting “NO” to the sales tax extension until the district is willing to accept stipulations on how this additional $450 million will be used. How about dedicating 10% to pay down our excessive debt? The audit revealed unauthorized spending and missing paperwork. How about a citizens committee from the building industry, banking and financial arenas that will meet once a month and approve all invoices before the district can write checks?  Remember, no one was ever held accountable, and most of those same people are still working in the district. The district will continue to receive sales tax monies for the next year-and-a-half. Let them agree to stipulations and submit this proposal in the next election.

What are the other top three issues the district faces?

The district has an impending disaster with its ERP installation. There will probably be cost overruns in the millions and the earlier completion date cannot be accomplished.

The underutilization of some schools needs to be addressed.

Choicing needs to be controlled so as to not put a burden on already over-utilized schools.

Let’s have common sense, not Common Core in our schools.  Let’s not punish those who “opt out."

Edward Viltz

Age: 69

Occupation: Retired executive, classroom teacher and mentor

Hometown: New Orleans

Family: Three grown children; six grandchildren

About: Edward Viltz is a 35-year veteran executive of leading international corporations and nonprofit organizations and also a teacher and education consultant. 

Several schools are at or over capacity. How can you as a board member have an impact?

The most immediate priority is building a new high school in Parrish to relieve the overcrowding (as well as extended busing) at Lakewood Ranch and Palmetto High. As a board member, the first priority is finalizing and approving the land purchase to break ground, followed by providing financial oversight on building the new facility.

Most importantly and on a countywide scale, I would ensure that the accepted recommendations from the De Jong Richter future schools study, which was supported by the community-based task force and approved by the school board is effectively implemented. In addition, ensure funding was made available through impact fees, the sales tax extension and the capital fund.

Do you think elementary schools need school resource officers?

This has become an emotional issue. The reality, however, in our elementary schools to date, there has been no justification for school resource officers with regards to outside intruders or unruly students. Until there is justification, staff oversight appears to be the most prudent and cost effective approach at the elementary level. The original intent for resource officers was for use in middle and high schools for potentially dangerous student situations. The current realities do not support the expense of expanding the program to include 33 new positions in elementary schools at this time. 

Manatee County Schools got a mixed bag for grades this year? How do you think county schools are performing academically?

We have reason for concern regarding our school district falling from a “B” to a “C” this year (testing controversies notwithstanding). In dissecting the data, there are several interesting observations. First of all we are actually beginning to see some of the investments in Title 1 schools beginning to show results. This year, performance gains were measured in addition to proficiency assessments and there have been gains even in the absence of high scores. Many of the traditionally high-performing schools, while proficient, had no gains and exhibited poor performance in the lower 25% of the student population. This resulted in a lower letter grade. In part, this may be due to an increasing mobile demographic, but the end result is performance has fallen, and the lack of gains is evident. As a school board member, I would focus particular attention to our bottom quartile and expect to see gains among our proficient students. 

If the half-cent sales tax is renewed, are there specific needs you believe it should be used to address? 

The sales tax only affects the capital budget, so by definition it will be used for infrastructure projects. Many of our schools are in need of major renovation and repair. The results of the future schools study outline this in detail by facility. The sales tax extension is mandatory to rehabilitate our declining infrastructure and address new facilities not covered by impact fees.

What are the other top three issues the district faces?

The first major issue is getting the half-cent sales tax extended and providing transparent oversight on how the funds are utilized. This will also require continuing to rebuild community trust in the school board’s ability to provide the appropriate level of financial oversight, which is why it is mandatory that new board members have extensive budget and financial management expertise.

Second, we have to improve our reading proficiency by third grade. Currently 1,200 (almost half) of our third-graders are not proficient. Studies have shown that students repeating third grade have 12 times the likelihood of not finishing high school. 

Third is our high school graduation rates, while improving, are still only 78% versus the national average of 87%. More importantly, our at-risk students are graduating at a rate of less than 50%. This is significant because high school dropouts commit 80% of the crimes in our community. Therefore, the higher our graduation rates, the lower our crime rates, the higher our property vales, and the safer our community.