Duval County Public Schools Superintendent Nikolai Vitti will present his strategic plan to the school board during its April 2 meeting, a plan that could include using more than $100 million in surplus school funding.
Vitti told 75 members of the Meninak Club of Jacksonville on Monday he has reviewed the school system and sees it in business terms.
"The way I look at it is it's a business model where our product is the quality of educational services that we provide to our children. Those are our clients: children and parents," said Vitti.
"Our product right now is below average. This is why, through a supply-and-demand approach, parents are opting out of Duval County Public Schools because our product is — in some ways, in some communities, in some classrooms — inferior," he said.
Vitti explained the system's job is to improve the product and bring back the demand and the clients. The process will benefit from more than $100 million in surplus school funding.
"That is just because of bad budgeting," he said of the surplus. "I'll be honest. It's not accountable budgeting. It's not focused to particular projects. We have to revolutionize the way we prepare a budget in the Duval County Public Schools, where every cent is linked to a person or every cent is linked to an initiative or a project and we project-manage that throughout the year," he said.
He called for leadership and stewardship of funding and said it is "too loose right now."
He said public education always has served children but now has competition from sources such as charter schools, opportunity scholarships and the No Child Left Behind law, each of which has "challenged the status quo."
"It has injected competition in public education, which is positive, but what has happened over the last 10 years is that the school districts, in general, find that competition as a threat and they become defensive instead of using it as an opportunity to improve themselves," said Vitti.
Viti said after the meeting that he has support, which includes Mayor Alvin Brown and the Jacksonville Civic Council. The council consists of business leaders whose mission is to "create a clear vision for the City of Jacksonville along with concrete strategies and tactics for achieving this vision."
"I am fortunate as superintendent to have a mayor who understands the importance of public education. In my opinion, the mayor's role is to continue to emphasize the importance of public education to having a great city, to continue to hone the mentorship program and to bring resources into the city that can be leveraged by the school district," Vitti said.
Vitti said he made a presentation to the council during his first 100 days in office.
"I think the Civic Council's role is similar to other organizations, which is to hold the board and the superintendent accountable to working together to focus on results and filling gaps that exist to implementing the strategic plan through additional resources," said Vitti.
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