Excitement Swells for Start of School Year

It will be a historic occasion Monday morning when the new consolidated school in Eastpoint swings open its doors to welcome students from throughout the entire county.

All this week enthusiasm has been brewing for the monumental moment when all students in the mainstream public school district, everywhere from Apalachicola to Alligator Point, and from grades kindergarten through 12th, will flow into the newly completed approximately $50 million campus.

The only students that will not be educated on the new campus are those that attend the Apalachicola Bay Charter School in Apalachicola, those pre-kindergartners from throughout the county who will be attending classes at the Central Campus in Eastpoint, the former Brown Elementary School; and those enrolled in the Learning Center, which has been relocated to the Central Campus.

On Wednesday, Aug. 6, culinary arts teacher Cheryl Creek served up lunch to 102 people at a combined luncheon of the Apalachicola and Carrabelle chambers of commerce.

Present and former school district leadership, including former Quinn High School principal and school board member Willie Speed, were on hand to introduce both ends of the county to the sprawling campus.

Although limited by the absence of some of her most trusted students (the presence of inmate work crews precluded any students from being on campus), Creek topped off the lunch with homemade cookies and three kinds of homemade ice cream, with all proceeds going to the culinary department.

On Monday, the teaching staff at Franklin County School arrived on campus, welcomed by the cheerleading squads directed by advisor Elinor Mount-Simmons. The union representing the teachers and support staff covered the cost of breakfast.

Tonight, Aug. 14, school registration will be held on the new campus for all grades from 1 to 7 p.m. Parents are required to attend registration and are encouraged to attend a Career Day function, for grades eight through 12, that will be from 1 to 4 p.m.

Both events will be held on the new campus in the cafetorium area. For more information, call the new school at 670-2800.

One huge bit of good news the district received this week was that there is a strong possibility the Boys and Girls Clubs will receive the approximately $600,000 in annual funding that appeared in jeopardy.

The Florida Department of Education (DOE) announced last month that the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Big Bend had fallen 17 hundredths of a point away from continuing to get funding for the "Good Tides" program through the 21st Century Community Learning Center program. That program had provided after-school programs at Chapman and Brown elementary schools and Carrabelle High School.

But Buddy Streit, director of the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Big Bend, which administers the county program, said Tuesday that meetings with DOE had been fruitful. "They have agreed to reconsider the decision about the funding of Good Tides. We are scheduled to finalize the funding amount and sites and locations on Wednesday Aug. 13," he said.

If the clubs receive the lost funding, they will not have to modify a similar program they administer in the county, funded from a $360,000 Project Impact grant, that serves sites at the ABC School, Love Center Academy and the new consolidated school.

"We will have a Good Tides program in Franklin County but the details have to be ironed out," said Streit. "We will work hard to reopen those three sites but it's up to DOE to approve that plan."