Come Together: The Story of Jacksonville's Consolidation - Part 5

 It came as no surprise to anyone that the first item in the Duval County Local Government Study Commission's list of specific problems requiring a rethinking of the form of government was the disaccreditation of the county's schools.

I was a senior at Alfred I duPont Junior-Senior High School in Duval County in the 1964-1965 school year.  I and my college-bound classmates were anxious over our prospects of being accepted at the college of our choice.  Here's why:

10 November 1964, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools informed Duval County School Superintendent Ish Brant that, as of 30 November, Duval County's public schools would be stripped of their accreditation on the basis of inadequate financial support for the schools.(Marbut, Daily Record)  This inadequacy resulted from a determined and deliberate assessment of county properties for tax purposes at about 40% of the legally-mandated fair market value.(Walter v. Schuler, 81)  The resulting shortfall in finances in the schools brought about a litany of ills cited by the Southern Association in its letter to Superintendent Brant.  These ills were, quoting directly from the Marbut article in the Daily Record, which I have arranged in list format:

1.  Inadequate maintenance procedures.

2.  Inadequate care of buildings and grounds.  (To which I can testify:  One Saturday in the 63-64 school year, my best friend and I went from her house, a block and a half from the school, to the duPont campus just to walk around and talk.  We peered in the doors at the south end of the school and saw what looked like vapors wafting in the hallway.  Concerned, we called the fire department.  It turned out that a teacher had activated the supply to the gas burner in an old science lab that had been superseded by a new science building at the school.  The system, not properly inspected and maintained, had leaked.  One spark could have blown up the school.)

3.  Inadequate textbooks and other instructional materials.  (To which I can testify, as, in the 1962-63 school year, my science textbook bore a copyright date of 1946!)

4.  Insufficient number of teachers, particularly in elementary and feeder junior high schools.

5.  Inadequate laboratory equipment, libraries and collections.

6.   Schools resorting to fundraising activities that were educationally unsound to supplement limited budgets.

7.   A "fee system" in all schools which "violated basic principles of publicly supported education."

County Tax Assessor Ralph N. Walter became the most disliked man on high school campuses in the county.  

 Those of us who were college-bound and who would have, under normal circumstances, applied to colleges in the spring of 1965, frantically scrambled to apply in the fall of 1964 under "early acceptance" policies.  Under such a policy, I and several of my classmates were accepted at Florida State University.

And that was only one of the many specific problems facing Jacksonville and Duval County.

In the next part, I'll discuss the rest of the items on that list.

References:

Duval County (Florida) Local Government Study Commission, Blueprint for Improvement, 1966. (Jacksonville: no publisher, 1966).  Online resource of the George W. Simons, Jr., Planning Collection, University of North Florida, Thomas G. Carpenter Library Special Collections and Archives, UNF Digital Commons, https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/simonsflorida/8/.

Marbut, Max, "50 Years Ago: Duval County Public Schools to Lose Accreditation," Jacksonville Daily Record, 10 November 2014.  Online: https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2014/nov/10/50-years-ago-duval-county-public-schools-lose-accreditation/ (Accessed 7 Feb. 2025).

Walter v. Schuler, Supreme Court of Florida (176 So. 2d 81 (1965)).  Justia U.S. Law (online resource): https://law.justia.com/cases/florida/supreme-court/1965/34039-0.html (Accessed 7 Feb. 2025).

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