The man hired by Pinellas County Schools to help close the achievement gap at five failing schools held his second public meeting Tuesday evening, in front of a sparse crowd of teachers and zero parents.
However, the newly hired Director of School Leadership, Antonio Burt, said he has a plan to get parents involved.
Burt stood in front of about 12 teachers at the meeting meant for parents whose children attend under performing schools in the district. The elementary schools - Campbell Park, Fairmount Park, Lakewood, Maximo and Melrose - have all received F grades for several years in a row and the enrollments have 95 percent of its students failing reading and math.
Now, it's Burt's job to fix the problem.
The school district hired him in January and recently approved an eight-member board to work with him, specifically focusing on improving the five failing schools.
Part of the plan, according to Burt, is to recruit new teachers for these schools. He said he wants the best of the best and plans to increase teacher pay by $25,000 at the schools affected.
Also, current teachers and principals will have to re-interview for their jobs. There will be new assessments that will give real-time feedback to teachers and student school days will be extended by one hour.
"The only thing that changed in the school is the people," Burt said. "The kids don’t change, it’s the same kids, so whenever you approach a turnaround setting you must address three areas: culture, routine, and expectations. In order to bring about change in the school, you’ve got to have a high belief that we can excel, we must excel."
Director of School Leadership Antonio Burt said he has a plan to get parents involved.
Burt also said parents need that same faith and belief that things will improve at their children's schools.
He said each school will focus on building relationships with parents, bringing in outside resources to the schools to help parents and hopefully change their opinions of the schools.
Currently, all of Burt's plans are in the preliminary phase.
Burt said he will work with his board through the summer and there will be a full implementation with the start of the 2016-17 school year.