Earlier this month the Lee County School District held its second Town Hall where parents, teachers, and community members had the opportunity to ask any question of Superintendent Denise Carlin and School Board Member Debbie Jordan.
The gathering was held at the recreation center in North Fort Myers.
Carlin says that events like this are important because it’s a rare moment where the district can get direct feedback from parents.
“Parents are our partners in education,” she said. “We can’t do the job alone, so we need our parents engaged and hopefully the town hall is a first step towards that.”
Jordan added that it is important for the district to know how exactly parents are getting their information, and that events like this help gauge how to best improve engagement with their child’s education.
“Do they look at our Facebook pages? Do they listen to messenger? What type of communication do we need to enhance the participation of families and the community?” she said.
Community member Edward Drass, who has friends and neighbors with kids in the school district, felt that the event addressed many concerns that he had.
“Dr. Carlin covers it excellently and she fielded all the questions very well,” Drass said.
He added that his personal biggest concerns were teacher retention and getting kids to school on time, issues that he felt were covered effectively by the town hall.
Here are some of the biggest talking points from the event:
SAFE START INITIATIVE
The Safe Start Initiative is a proposed plan for the 2025-2026 school year to improve the transportation system of the school district. It would create three tiers of school start times rather than the current four and add 30 minutes to the school day.
Spacing the start times of schools to an hour apart, the district says, will help bus drivers be more efficient in how they approach picking up students at their stops.
According to Carlin, the district has an on-time drop off rate of 82%, meaning that around 8,000 children are not getting to school on time.
The on-time pick up rate is even lower, with only around 60% of children getting dropped off on time. That leaves around 18,000 children getting dropped off late.
With Safe Start, Carlin hopes that the three-tier transportation system will give bus drivers enough time to safely and efficiently get children to school.
“We don’t live in our problems, we solve our problems,” Carlin said. “That’s why we’re doing this initiative.”
One concern brought up at the town hall regarded a possible conflict with existing laws, specifically House Bill 733, which was signed into law and is set to be enforced in the 2026-2027 school year. HB 733 states that in Florida, middle schools cannot start earlier than 8:00 a.m., and high schools cannot start earlier than 8:30 a.m.
This would conflict with the Safe Start times, with high schools proposed to start at 7:00 a.m.
Carlin said that there are several pieces of legislation working to combat the law, and that the district’s position is about local control.
“Our advocacy as a governance team is around allowing local control,” she said. “We don’t need the state telling us ‘Here’s the one thing to do,’ we should be able to work with our communities, right?”
Cellphones
Several questions regarding the district’s cellphone policy were asked, with the main one being what the future of cellphone use in Lee County schools would be.
“When our children come to school, they are there to learn, and that’s what we want them to do,” Jordan said. “We really don’t want distractions for them.”
“I think the board was pretty clear that this is going to be a phone-free zone,” Carlin added. “However, students will have cell phones in their backpacks, so in the event of an emergency or if you needed to get your child home after school, you want them to still have availability.”
Another concern brought up was banning cell phones as medical devices. For some cases, like diabetes, children use their phones to track their blood sugars. Carlin mentioned that there would be medical exceptions to any cellphone ban, and that accommodations could be discussed with the principals of schools.
TEACHER RETENTION/RECRUITMENT
Many questions at the town hall were focused on how to improve teacher recruitment and retention. The district is currently experiencing a teacher shortage, with 181 instructional jobs posted on their website.
Carlin said that when she spoke to teachers on the campaign trail, she noticed that it wasn’t just the pay that was making them leave. It was also the working conditions.
“When I really probed on that, it was ‘I want to be able to have some say in what happens in our schools',” she said.
Another major threat to retention is behavioral issues in children. Carlin said that there were reports of teachers getting broken bones, knocked unconscious, and more.
“That doesn’t make me want to get up in the morning,” she said.
Addressing these behavioral issues and creating a working environment where teachers feel supported and listened to is a major strategy point in addressing the teacher shortage, according to the district.
As far as salary talks were concerned, the school district is currently bargaining with the Teacher’s Association of Lee County, the local teachers union, and would not discuss amounts of money.
IMMIGRATION/ICE
One question had to do with potential ICE raids at Lee County schools. With a recent executive order signed by President Trump, schools are no longer a safe haven for children without legal status and could be subject to ICE raids.
Carlin said that just like local law enforcement, ICE is law enforcement. And that comes with a specific processes that need to happen before they gain access to a school.
“They must have a warrant or an order that is specific to what is being requested,” she said. “We certainly check badges to make sure they’re legitimate, if there’s a question about the order the legal department is certainly available to principles to make sure that at the end of the day, we follow the law, period.”
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
With President Trump calling for the removal of the Department of Education, one question at the town hall was focused on how the school district is preparing for that possibility.
“I think that any organization needs to be aware of their political environment,” Carlin said. “As we continue to follow this situation we will continue to put plans into place; we have had that conversation.”
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