(Editor’s note: Please note that the author of this story is a member of the committee and was a school teacher before joining the staff of the Daily Record.)
by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Cheryl Grymes is hoping three times proves to be the charm.
In 1994, the Interlocal Task Force was formed. The group consisted of staff members from the City and the Duval County School Board. The task force was supposed to devise a way for the City and the school system to share facilities and services. It didn’t work.
“After a year or two, they agreed to disagree and disbanded,” said Grymes, who chairs the current committee.
Four years later, the Joint Site Planning Committee was formed. Similar make up, similar job, similar result.
“Unfortunately, the composition was not good and it didn’t specify any lay members,” explained Grymes, a former two-term School Board member. “Some staff was on it, some staff wasn’t. We weren’t able to get the people we needed. I was on it as a School Board member.”
Today’s version of the JPC has Grymes’ hopes high. At meetings she looks around the room and sees an eclectic group of nine appointed by the mayor’s office, City Council and the School Board. She sees Jerry Holland, a builder who just happens to be Council president. She sees Dave Tillis, the vice president of regulatory affairs for the St. Joe Company and someone willing to think outside the box. She sees School Board member Kris Barnes, someone who, like Grymes, is a parent who got involved and stayed involved. And, there are others, people who grew up in the system and care about both the present and future of the local public school system.
It’s this group and the resource staff from the City and school system that gives Grymes hope. And, given the current state of the system, the JPC has to succeed.
“The composition of the committee itself is better,” said Grymes. “It’s made up of lay people and staff from both entities as resource help. It should work much better and we have a pretty good process in place.”
The better part of the committee’s first year of existence will be devoted to the tedious but hardly tenuous task of rewriting the current interlocal agreement between the City and the school system. Mandated by State laws, the interlocal agreement will outline in writing how the use of such facilities as gyms, pools and playing fields will be shared. Public sentiment is they are public facilities funded by taxpayer dollars and, therefore, are free game. However, because of a variety of concerns such as liability insurance and oversight, many school principals are hesitant to throw the doors open to their facilities. Grymes admits the task will be difficult and, without any other models to mimic, the committee is practically making up the interlocal agreement as it goes.
“Having a consolidated government helps. Counties with multiple municipalities must be a nightmare,” said Grymes, the executive director of The Alliance for World Class Education. “But being as large as we are is making it tough. It’s difficult to service 127,000 kids and 13,000 employees.”
Like the others, Holland brings a unique perspective to the committee. His political ties will certainly help and being a builder will have its advantages, but Holland points to two other factors that make the committee attractive to him.
“My interest comes from being a high school baseball coach. I understand the need for and interlocal agreement and the uses of those fields,” said Holland, who coaches the Paxon High School varsity baseball team. “And, I’m a past president of the San Jose Athletic Association where I was always working with the City. I’ve seen us work together and not work together and run into problems. My interest was totally piqued by my past interaction on so many levels.”
Once the interlocal agreement has been reworked and approved, the JPC will start to address the county’s future needs and the atmosphere will surely help spur classic out-of-the-box thinking. The committee gathers in the St. Joe meeting room where photos of gorgeous shorelines mingle with state-of-the-art building designs. Looking around, it’s hard to not be inspired by what could be and, listening to people like Holland, Grymes and Tillis, it’s easy to imaging the days of sprawling yet drab campuses being numbered.
Tillis is a huge advocate of building multi-level middle and high schools (state laws prevent more than one-story elementary schools) on land masses that are just a fraction the size of current layouts. He envisions the days when classic joint use is the norm rather than the exception. Before the decade is out, there may be several campuses around town featuring a middle and high school, shared athletic facilities, a community center and a public park — all on one tract of land.
While Holland agrees that such facilities will one day exist, he believes the first step is to secure the necessary land, something that can be very tricky. According to Department of Education rules, Duval County may participate in land banking — that is, buying prospective land with State money for future schools. This allows the school system to analyze population growth and shifts, and predict where schools will be needed and buy land. The problem is, the State will not fund the actual construction of the school until the nearby population warrants. However, often the population grows so quickly that the new school quickly becomes overcrowded shortly after opening. The “Field of Dreams” mantra — “if you build it, they will come” — does not apply.
Tillis is also an advocate of allowing private developers to build public schools with the developer’s money. The developer would then essentially rent the school to the school system on a lease to own basis. After an agreed-upon number of years, the developer hands over the deed to the school. Both Holland and Grymes believe that this system has merit and could become the most economically sensible way to get the schools of tomorrow built without the red tape of today.
“I think that has potential,” said Holland. “Normally, builders of subdivisions know how attractive it is to be next to a school or park. There are advantages to being near recreational and educational facilities. They realize up front that the area is underdeveloped and wonder what happens if we put a school here first? The State may see this as creating urban sprawl. But, until we ask these questions, we won’t know the answer.”
“That’s certainly a creative solution,” said Grymes, “and it’s been done other places.”
Grymes is also convinced the committee will be able to help the school system solve some of the current problems plaguing Duval County schools.
“I think this committee can provide them with some help,” she said. “We have representatives from the library, Parks & Recreation and the community centers as resource staff. It’s about exploring alternatives. We have to get away from saying, ‘Let’s close schools,’ and find different purposes for the old building that will benefit the neighborhoods.
“Will it take some radical ideas? Yes. The value of the committee is that we have minds coming together to come up with solutions. Funding is where some of the most creative ideas will come and everyone agrees that land banking is a great idea.”