Just in the last few weeks, we witnessed a powerful and an historic win for working families who have been struggling to find affordable housing.

Sarasota County Commissioners voted unanimously to allocate $25 million in federal funds (American Rescue Plan Act) that will help build affordable housing throughout our communities. The investment of $25 million dollars will help build out nearly 700 affordable housing units. It is the single largest commitment in terms of investment in affordable housing and creation of number of units that has ever been made by the Sarasota County Commission. Again, historic.

A community-led coalition, spearheaded by Gulf Coast Community Foundation, worked for months to compile a list of recommended projects for the County Commission to consider. The recommendations were debated and eventually supported by the Sarasota County Commission. The goal is for this housing to remain affordable for years to come.  

We are grateful for leadership of the Sarasota County Commissioners. This is an example of a public-private partnership that should serve as a model for future collaborations on affordable housing. 

What is next? Sarasota County staff (charged with the implementation of the ARPA affordable housing funding) have contacted the nonprofits who are providers of the affordable housing. They have set up a debriefing meeting where important information will be provided about agreements and projects. 

Even with this historic progress, Gulf Coast and partners like Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation will continue to fight for our hard-working families who have been “priced-out” of homes. We need to recognize that every family in Sarasota needs a home that they can afford. We must reexamine our policies so that they create incentives to build more affordable housing. While we celebrate this tremendous success, we know affordable housing will remain a top priority for us for years to come.

Mark Pritchett is President and CEO of Gulf Coast Community Foundation. 

District and school scores are published on schools throughout the state of Florida. It is a unique ability to compare school districts and schools and understand where we are at. While COVID has put a hiccup into how these scores are used, and there are no letter grades for most individual schools, we can still compare data points.

The good news is that we are still an “A” school district and that rating is an important one to keep. But we are barely keeping that grade by the skin of our teeth. 

A five-year review gives us four years of data to examine, with one year missing due to COVID. We had been on an upswing since the 2016-2017 year, showing improvements in our ranking, our “Total Points Earned as a District” and our “Percentage of Total Possible Points” until the 2018-2019 year. There was no data due to COVID from the 2019-2020 year.

But we now have data for last year, the 2020-2021 year, and it is troubling. It is the “Percentage of Total Possible Points” that tells us whether we are an “A” District. Unfortunately, we are scaringly only 2 percentage points from becoming a “B” District.  We suffered a 4% drop from the 2018-2019 year and we dropped from being ranked the third best school district in the state to now sixth.

We see more metrics in our schools dropping after they were on a positive rise. Our graduation rate dropped a point and a half after being on an uphill trend since 2016-2017. While we are doing better than the state average, our Math Learning gains overall took a large hit, dropping over 15 percentage points over two years. This is a terrible drop for our kids. Blacks/African Americans saw a staggering loss of 17.7% in this area.

This troubling number on math gains caused me to take a closer look at the achievement gap in Sarasota County in math and I was horrified by what I found. The math achievement gap in Sarasota County is 39 percentage points. Yes, a 39-point differential between whites and blacks. Our differential problem is worse than the statewide problem by five percentage points.

English is just as bad; there is a 35-point achievement gap differential between whites and blacks in English. Our English achievement gap in Sarasota County is six percentage points worse than the gap statewide.

To make matters worse, the state keeps a list of the 300 lowest performing schools in the state and we have a school on that very list, Booker Elementary School. That’s right, here in Sarasota County, we have a school that is low performing. While schools had to opt in to get grades, Booker technically did not get an official grade. But if they had, it would be a “D” if you look at its Percentage of Total Possible Points. 

Finally, we have two unofficial “F” schools— schools failing our kids. Wilkinson Elementary School also did not get an official grade, but is now an “F” school if you look at the Percentage of Possible Points, dropping two grades from a “C” school in 2019. Charter school Suncoast School for Innovative Studies also received an unofficial “F,” down from a “C” in 2019.

This cannot continue. 

As a community we should not accept this and we should not accept excuses because there will be plenty of them.  I can hear all of the rationalizations already: COVID, angry parents (who should be angry by the way), “look over here at this and not at the numbers,” etc. By the way, Sarasota faced these same issues that the three school districts who jumped ahead of us faced. 

No. We should reject each and every justification and hold this majority School Board accountable for failing our kids. They have complete and total control over the budget, policy and their meeting agendas. There is no one to blame other than the image in their mirror. It is time they stopped warring with parents, the Governor and the Legislature and take significant action in academics. We can’t afford to lose this generation.

Christine Robinson is executive director of the Argus Foundation. 

Change is a constant in our lives – with job and career changes impacting many of us. As our community’s college, the State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota, is here to help you manage change and has the programs to match your new direction. 

I recently spoke with Stephen Brelsford, a 2021 information technology graduate and finalist for SCF’s outstanding graduate award. His journey with SCF began long before he was a student, tagging along with his mother to classes as she pursued her nursing degree at the college. 

After graduating from high school locally in 2001, he started classes at Manatee Community College but chose to pursue a full-time job instead: “At the time, I felt like going to college was just what people did after graduating from high school. I hadn’t put much thought into what kind of work I really wanted to do, and I was just going through the motions.”

In recent years, health issues made Stephen realize he had to re-skill and find a career that better suited his new physical limitations: “I did have some credits from my previous time at SCF, and those aligned perfectly with the information technology degree I eventually earned. (IT) is a combination of knowing how things work, and making things work. I’ve had a love for technology since my parents got me an original NES for my fifth birthday. You realize things don’t always work how they should, and solving that puzzle is a lot of fun for me.”

Stephen credits professors Jason Reed and Bill Culver with motivating him in his IT classes and SCF’s Disability Resource Center for helping him manage his health issues and stay on track toward his degree: “I was taking a class with each of them when I got the call for my transplant, and they were both extremely understanding and accommodating. Also, Pat Lakey at the DRC was so helpful each semester in making sure I had everything I needed to be successful in my courses. School is not easy when you are trying to manage a major health issue.”

Stephen’s story has come full circle. He started his experience coming to campus with his mother for her pre-nursing courses, and now he works for SCF as a simulation center technician at the college’s nursing simulation center on the Lakewood Ranch Campus: “It’s really an honor to be able to contribute to the education of our future healthcare workers. Every time I look at them, I see my current and former care team, and I’m reminded of how grateful I am to have them in my corner. I want everyone to be able to feel that sort of comfort when it comes to their health.”

If you are interested in following Stephen’s example, the 26 West Center at SCF is preparing individuals for careers in IT and coding. Financial assistance is available through the Open Door Grant awarded by the state. For more information on these and many more technology focused programs and to see how the Open Door Grant can help you go to http://coding.scf.edu.

His advice sums up his story best: “No matter if you graduated from high school last summer or 20 years ago, put yourself in control of your future, find something you are interested in, and go for it. You will thank yourself later.”

When you make that decision, SCF is here for you.

Dr. Carol Probstfeld is president of State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota.