The city of Alachua’s Education Task Force (ETF) unanimously voted to adopt its 2025 strategic plan during a regular meeting on Tuesday. 

Member Tanya Floyd moved to approve the plan, which passed 4-0 with Chair Jeffrey Means absent. 

The plan outlined six educational improvement initiatives for the board to prioritize over the next year. It’s the ETF’s second since the Alachua City Commission established the board in July 2023 after city school performance ranked as one of the highest priorities on the city’s strategic plan to address that year. 

The board consists of five voting members who serve staggered three-year terms, recommending policies, procedures and suggestions to the City Commission for improving city education. The commission also appoints one of its members and a city staff employee to serve as non-voting liaisons to the ESF. 

During a regular meeting on April 14, the ESF discussed and ranked the initiatives to draft the plan, which is a “living document” that can be updated as the year progresses. 

Each ETF board member serves as a “champion” for one initiative, where they work with the board liaison and city economic development manager, David Wisener, to advance it. 

Wisener noted on Tuesday that two ETF seats will open in July. He said the assigned initiatives will follow the champion board member if they reapply for the position or be tasked to the new member. 

When asked by the board where education fell on the City Commission’s list of priorities during its strategic planning retreat, which was also held on Tuesday, Wisener said the commission ranked it first or second. 

He said the commission wanted to invite ETF members to attend their regular meetings and would be open to more recommendations they could consider in the city’s budget. 

Wisener also said that building a collaborative relationship with the School Board of Alachua County (SBAC), as the ESF was designed to do, had become increasingly difficult. 

Unlike past years, where SBAC staff had been responsive, he said he and others hadn’t heard back from Interim Superintendent Kamela Patton’s office to schedule a joint city and school board meeting. 

“I and others have not been able to get a response from the new superintendent since she has taken office,” Wisener said. “I’d be very open to any help if anybody has the ear of the superintendent or anybody else within her office. It’s very different from the past.” 

The following ETF strategic initiatives are ranked in order of priority according to the Strategic Plan 2025 book: 

Initiative one: Promote and advocate for home visitation programs for families of children ages 0 to 5 years old. 

Championed by Floyd, the initiative is an ongoing effort to increase parental awareness of home visitation programs offered through the SBAC and Healthy Start of North Central Florida Coalition (HSNCFC). 

The project launched after UF researcher Herman Knopf told city staff in September 2023 that home visitation programs are effective in improving children’s learning development.  

For home visitation in Alachua County, the SBAC currently offers Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) and HSNCFC offers Parents as Teachers. 

City staff found that while HIPPY covers 60 families in Alachua County, it does not reach the city of Alachua. To do so, the city would need to hire another full-time home visitor for a salary of around $37,000.  

Last year, staff started tracking data for home visiting enrollment within the city and partnered with NewboRN Home Visiting, a free county service supplying in-home registered nurses during the week after a birth, in order to introduce families in the city to Parents as Teachers programs. 

Initiative two: Coordinate with the Children’s Home Society (CHS) and SBAC to establish a Community Partnership School at either Mebane Middle School or Alachua Elementary. 

Mebane Middle School principal Michael Gamble introduced city staff to the CHS Community Partnership School Program in 2023 after having been involved with it as principal of Gainesville’s Howard Bishop Middle School.  

The program connects local schools with resources to help underprivileged students, but requires regular funding once it is established. Last year, city staff met with CHS representatives to discuss starting programs at Mebane or Alachua Elementary. 

The initiative is championed by Wisener and is expected to be completed by the 2027-28 school year. 

Initiative three: Coordinate with Special Olympics to help some or all of the Alachua community schools become Unified Champion Schools. 

The board aims to use connections from previous partnerships with Special Olympics Florida, which has hosted events at Legacy Park in Alachua, to push local schools to become Unified Champion Schools with the organization. 

Doing so would allow the schools to launch programs that integrate students with and without intellectual disabilities. 

“Before the school year ended, my school did do Special Olympics to be a unified champion school and it went very well,” said Vice Chair Travis White, who is also the initiative’s champion, on Tuesday. “We kept ours relatively small due to budget restrictions, but the kids had a good time.” 

The initiative is expected to be completed by the start of the 2027-28 school year. 

Initiative four: Coordinate with local businesses to create opportunities to recognize children’s achievements and successes. 

The effort aims to foster programs, such as Pizza Hut’s Million Minutes of Reading campaign, that provide children with rewards for academic achievements within the local business sector. 

The initiative is championed by ETF Member Lynn Hayes with an expected completion date of August 2026.  

Initiative five: Create an advertising and information sharing strategy to better promote available resources to parents, teachers and students. 

The ongoing effort championed by Means aims to connect the community with educational organizations and resources. Following ETF’s 2024 strategic plan, staff created a website to streamline resource information.  

The initiative aims to increase communication efforts to promote the website and wants to select three new methods by October to do so. 

Initiative six: Identify sustainable funding sources from the private business sector, state and federal government levels to subsidize preschool programs for all children in economic need within the city. 

ETF Member Dietra Sherman champions the initiative, which aims to create a program providing economic help to preschoolers modeled after West Sacramento, California’s program. 

When its population was 48,000—almost five times more than Alachua’s—West Sacramento funded preschool for children ages 0 to 5 within its limits.  

By October, Alachua staff intend to contact West Sacramento and brainstorm what data they need to move forward with the initiative set to be completed by August 2027.