- September 7, 2024
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Looking for a good doctor to operate on your prostate? Get rid of your cataracts? Fix your AC? Renovate your kitchen? Cure your cancer? Set up your Wi-Fi?
Let’s hope whoever you hire, first learned to read, write, and calculate. In other words, let’s hope they learned their basics in K-12. My kids are grown, and my grandkids don’t live here. Some think seniors don’t have to care about K-12 because their families are done with it. Are they?
Boeing is bringing 400 new jobs to Volusia County, via Embry-Riddle. Those who transfer here will want good schools for their kids. Boeing and others will expect the county to offer an educated workforce. What else will they expect?
We already pay for this. The largest proportion of our property taxes goes to the Volusia County School District. The district has the largest budget in the county, in excess of $1.2 billion. The above benefits are the return on our investment. Or not.
The Daytona Chamber’s 2023 Leadership class chose our education system as their year-long project. Specifically, they aim to bring public attention to our very low third-grade reading proficiency rates. The business community clearly sees the relationship between education and the county’s economic stability.
The school district itself is an economic engine. It employs nearly 8,000. It contracts with a wide variety of vendors — food, transportation, and a myriad of support services.
The district boasts a graduation rate — our future workforce — approaching 100%. At the same time, math and reading proficiency rates at all grade levels still hover around 50%, so how do we reconcile those numbers? How much remediation do colleges need to provide to our K-12 graduates, and what about those who don’t attend college? Are their basic skills strong enough to give them a good employment foundation?
The reasons for low proficiencies are many, and there is no easy fix:
The bottom line is that public school districts affect us all, regardless of our age, family status, or economic situation. Our public safety, employment base, infrastructure, social services, healthcare, entertainment, recreation — everything starts with the foundational education provided by the K-12 system.
A healthy education system creates a healthy community from youth up. Our responsibility is to support it — for ourselves, our neighbors, and our future generations. It starts with a stronger school board. We need that now, more than ever.
Donna Brosemer is a candidate running for Volusia County School Board District 4. A former lobbyist, Brosemer has 30 years of experience working in public policy and has served on higher education state boards.