School board approves new positions and vehicle leasing agreement

As Sarasota's school board convened on March 11, it added five new positions, while also approving a leasing agreement for its white fleet vehicles.

A growing district

Superintendent Terry Connor said at this point, the school district was not necessarily committed to funding the new positions, but the district was looking to be proactive regarding future priorities. 

He said the role of innovative program specialist will be useful as the district drives the expansion of its programs through its strategic plan over the next six years.

The role will oversee initiatives to include but not limited to STEAM, dual-language, early college, and work-based competency programs.

"We've got a lot on the horizon for this school district because we know we can't continue to do the same thing and expect the different results," Connor said, stating the district, which is currently "hyper-focused" on instruction, was at capacity.

The second position, charter school program specialist, drew multiple critical comments during the public comments session of the meeting.

"If we want to be a top district, why are we wasting a proposed $107,000-plus dollars to hire someone to help charter schools do better, at a time when we are facing financial problems due to loss of state funding to vouchers and the potential loss of federal dollars?" retired teacher Robin Williams said. "We could hire new classroom teachers for for that price or use it to further support (English Language Learner) students with important services."

Connor said the district would fund this position only if the charter schools have a commitment to helping fund it. 

“With the expansion of over 7,000 students that are in our charter schools, and we know that they are continuing to grow, we believe, and we've looked at the data and I've shown the data very clearly publicly in workshops, that without us intervening with some support or inviting some support there, we can't continue to achieve our goals of being the number one school district,” he said.

Board member Robyn Marinelli said in the past, charter schools had shared funding with school psychologists. 

Connor said the role of program specialist, accelerated pathways, he intends to fund in the next budget. 

He said when students pass certain classes or programs, the district receives add-on funds, and as the district grows these programs, it needs an individual to strengthen and align them. 

He said the role of specialist, exceptional student education was fulfilled at the elementary level with an individual who can build curriculum resources and assessments, provide coaching for teachers in the classroom and participate in impact reviews. 

However, he said the district did not have this role for grades 6-12, and that this position would specifically serve the secondary school level. 

Connor called the position of professional learning credit specialist "really important."

He said instructional personnel must renew their certificates every 5 years and obtain at least 120 credits, but different district staff currently share the responsibility of reviewing these renewals. 

Finally, the district also approved a new leasing model with Enterprise Fleet Management for its white fleet, or non school-bus, vehicles. It moves the district from a direct ownership structure to a vehicle lease-with-maintenance structure.

“We want to move to a more managed lease model that will reduce the overall cost, so when you think about having to hire mechanics, and you think about the maintenance cost over time and the depreciation that occurs with purchased vehicles, a leasing agreement makes a lot of sense," Connor said. 

He said this five-year cycle which would include refreshes each year, ensuring newer vehicles "and that we're able to do everything we need to do to make sure that we're on top of having an up-to-date lease."

He said the $1.5 million annual cost was accounted for in the capital budget.

Board member Tom Edwards said mechanics would be absorbed into different roles involving the school buses.