Nate Monroe: In Jacksonville, one of Florida's largest school districts is crumbling

COMMENTARY | The 129,000-student Duval County Public School District, one of the largest in Florida, is crumbling before our eyes.

It's struggling to replace its former leader, Superintendent Diana Greene, who resigned last summer under pressure for reasons that have never been explained. A multi-billion dollar capital campaign, financed by a voter-approved sales tax, that was supposed to herald a celebrated revamping of the district's aging schools has instead devolved into a food fight over which cherished neighborhood schools must instead be closed and consolidated to compensate for revenue shortfalls. Charters and private schools are siphoning millions away from the district while Tallahassee works diligently to undermine the state's school districts through legislative subterfuge.

Last week, interim Duval Superintendent Dana Kriznar sent an email to staff revealing that the district is preparing to cut more than 700 positions because of a loss of student enrollment and the expiration of federal pandemic-recovery money — a stunning revelation amid what has already been a fraught moment for the district. More than 500 of the cuts will come from "school-based positions," although many of those are already vacant. An understaffed school district in a state with a substantial teacher shortage is set to lose even more staff.

This is the sea change in real time: Florida is inexorably moving away from traditional public schools, a transformation that has at long last begun to touch every corner of this sprawling city. Proposed school closures are not limited to Black or low-income neighborhoods, as shocked residents of Atlantic Beach learned in recent weeks when they saw their eponymous A-rated art deco neighborhood elementary school on the list.

Forcing the district into this Hobson's choice can only be the end-result of a desire to cancel traditional public education: The closures would also include schools like A. Philip Randolph Academies of Technology, a magnet school that offers high schoolers the chance to enroll in career academies, which include building trades and welding — the kinds of skills Florida's Republican politicians often claim they want to see offered to students more frequently. Yet this is the consequence of decisions they are making in Tallahassee.

Charters — those quislings of public education — are becoming the de facto norm, the favored venue for Republican politicians. In Jacksonville, Gov. Ron DeSantis hardly steps foot anymore in traditional public schools for bill signings and news conferences. Instead, he prefers places like Jacksonville Classical Academy, a charter school founded by John Rood, a prolific Republican donor, and with, at best, a mixed record of success — but an unmistakable, increasingly brazen right-wing bent.

Both City Hall and the Legislature have rewarded Jacksonville Classical with taxpayer money above and beyond what charters — and traditional public schools — are already entitled to: The state provided the school with $5 million to build a gym on its Brooklyn campus, complemented by an earlier outlay from city government of $1.4 million for the same purpose.

At no point did any policymaker seem interested in learning how Jacksonville Classical was spending its share of local sales-tax revenue that was intended to be earmarked solely for improving school infrastructure, i.e. this very purpose. This is the same sales tax that is funding Duval County's attempted revamp of its district schools; a driver of the substantial funding shortfall in that effort is the money that must, by law, be diverted to charters like Jacksonville Classical. But charters aren't limited to spending their funds on improving their facilities like the school district is. Instead, the limited available data show many charters are using their share to make rent payments. That means the substantial millions that would otherwise be put to use upgrading Duval's public schools, about $62 million according to district figures, are instead being pocketed by landlords who sometimes have affiliations with the charters themselves.

Needless to say there are no state bailouts or special outlays for Florida's school districts, who must simply live with the dwindling resources they have. Even a mere request of that kind would prompt investigations and talk of state takeovers.

Charter evangelists have also infiltrated the Duval County School Board — figures like April Carney, who has doted on Jacksonville's other preferred venue for right-wing politicians, Cornerstone Classical Academy.

Carney, whose district includes Atlantic Beach, was notably missing-in-action during weeks of controversy and public meetings as her outraged constituents learned Atlantic Beach Elementary could be shuttered. Only this week did Carney offer some insipid words of support for concerned parents during a town hall meeting — although notably not a town hall in Atlantic Beach. This outspoken Moms for Liberty activist-turned school board member became remarkably yellow-bellied the moment the actual consequences of policies she supports became clear for her constituents.

Carney is a distinct product of the Gov. Ron DeSantis era: an era during which DeSantis has sought to turn school board races, which are officially non-partisan, into hyper-politicized affairs through which he can enact a right-wing social agenda badly out of step with normal Floridians, many of whom simply want their long-standing neighborhood public school to stay open and vibrant.

Greene, Duval's former superintendent, left amid an exodus of Florida's public education leaders. This phenomenon is, of course, no great mystery: To be superintendent of a Florida school district today is to manage decline and to do so while standing mute — because outspokenness is off limits in the Free State of Florida. Vindictive state officials, vindictive school board members, vindictive right-wing activists who want to ban books and micromanage the curriculum: they are ghouls, all, that a superintendent must wrestle with.

The turmoil in Duval is a harbinger of Florida's dark future.

Nate Monroe is a metro columnist whose work regularly appears every Thursday and Sunday. Follow him on Twitter @NateMonroeTU.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Nate Monroe: Duval's school district crumbles, a victim of the DeSantis era