W.C. Gentry popped in a summer literacy camp Thursday, eager to catch a glimpse of how the enhanced program was working.
The Jacksonville Journey chair said he was pleased with the children’s engagement, but then noticed a glaring omission.
The literacy camp had no books for the children.
The supervisor was reading to the children, but the kids didn’t have the books for themselves.
It was enough to lead Gentry to write a blistering three-page letter to the Jacksonville Children’s Commission CEO detailing other issues found on the trip and demanding answers.
This year, the Journey and the Children’s Commission provided a $350,000 boost for seven of the 106 summer camps in the city’s more depressed areas to add a literacy component.
An hour a day of literacy instruction and enrichment is intended to be used as an assessment tool to help determine progress made to peers without the program.
Vendors were given extra money to buy the books for the kids. After some initial questioning, Gentry and his Journey colleague, Debbie Verges, found out the vendor they visited never did.
“It’s not the experience we have designed or expected,” Gentry said Friday night.
Additionally, the commission is the oversight agent for the camps but hadn’t made any site visits to the vendor, Gentry said in his letter.
And it might not have been just one of the seven camps lacking.
Gentry asked the commission’s senior operations director about the situation. According to the letter, the director was under the impression that except for one center, none of the camps provided books for each child.
There was more. Gentry went on to say at least one center hadn’t done the required background checks on all its employees and two other centers didn’t have the proper insurance.
After telling the Journey oversight committee later that day of the situation, he wrote the letter to commission CEO Jon Heymann.
The failure to properly administer and monitor the program, Gentry said in the letter, means the children, the city and Journey all have been deprived.
“I am profoundly disappointed and disturbed that this important program has been undermined,” the letter went on to say.
Heymann by text Friday evening said the commission will take a “serious look” at the concerns in Gentry’s letter.
Gentry laid out what he expected in his letter. That included:
• All vendors should purchase and deliver books and book bags early this week, so at least some benefit can be obtained. The programs are in their sixth of seven weeks.
• A breakdown of which programs provided books to each child and whether the vendors implemented curriculum that was designed by the University of North Florida. Each of the vendors had training at the school before the program began.
• How many children each camp has served compared to the number contracted.
• Delivery of book bags that also were part of part of the program, but have yet to be delivered. Gentry wants them there for the kids.
Until then, Gentry said in his letter, payment should be withheld to any providers who didn’t comply with the contract.
The issue is so critical, Gentry said Friday, because the Journey is about helping children and on performance-based evaluations. Without those metrics, there’s nothing to review.
“We expect people to perform to contracts,” Gentry said later. “That’s not what was happening … We’re going to get it right.”
He said he hopes to have all the details this week.
The program is one of many facets of the Journey anti-crime initiative, part of the larger push for public safety by Mayor Lenny Curry. After years of cuts, Curry’s first budget provided Journey programs about $3 million in additional funding to a total of about $5 million. His proposed budget for next year includes the same amount.
Kerri Stewart, Curry’s chief of staff, on Friday said Gentry made the administration aware of the situation and she is glad Gentry has taken an active role in oversight.
She echoed his sentiments about the need for performance data and wanted to see the commission’s response to the concerns.
City Council President Lori Boyer this year initially had concerns about various pools of money going toward summer camps.
Those concerns led to the Journey and Children’s Commission partnering for the literacy camps.
Boyer said Gentry’s letter contained some “pretty serious accusations” that give her great concern, if true.
“These are kids who are often behind in school,” said Boyer. “If we are going to pay for the summer camps, we don’t want them to fall behind.”
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