Hillsborough schools chief talks taxes, teachers and losing kids to choice

In August, Superintendent Van Ayres will welcome more than 200,000 students back to Hillsborough County schools.

He faces uncertainty over enrollment levels due to school choice and fallout from last year’s school boundary changes. State leaders have yet to determine the formula they will use to award school grades — a sore spot in Hillsborough, which led the state last year with 33 D and F schools. And voters will decide in November on a property tax that would allow the district to offer higher pay to its employees.

Among the bright spots: Unused classrooms are being repurposed for preschool. More students are passing their advanced placement exams. And renewed emphasis is being placed on attendance, which suffered everywhere during COVID.

Ayres recently met with the Tampa Bay Times to discuss these and other issues in the nation’s seventh largest school district. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

This is your second year opening the schools. What would you tell last year’s self about the job?

It’s a lot of mental stress and strain. Just the weight you feel every day, every morning. Are you doing enough, trying to give everything you have to everyone? When you’re a principal, you’re in a building. You can see your teachers. When you’re here (in the district headquarters), everybody’s out. So you lose that physical connection to people. That’s the challenging part for me. I’ll finish the day and I’ll have five or six people I still need to reach out to.

Projections from the state and charter schools say you could lose 60,000 students to school choice and vouchers. That adds up to about $500 million in funding. Even though those projections could be inflated, how tight do you think money will be next year?

Everything that you said are all projections. We start on a Monday this year and we have a campaign around having our community realize that we need everybody in school right away. We base our budget on who shows up (early in the year). And now this time, for the first time ever, we have boundary changes. This year, more than ever, those first five days of school, we need to make sure that everyone starts on day one so we can make our (staffing) adjustments, quick. And the other part of that is teacher vacancies. We have around 500 right now.

I know you cannot campaign for the tax referendum. But as you educate people on the issues, what kind of feedback are you getting?

Very positive feedback so far. As I’ve gone out, I explain about our capital budget and our operating budget. You’ll have the (county’s) community investment tax on the ballot, which is capital; and the millage will be for operating costs. I just want a level playing field. We are on a playing field right now that is not level, because of the top six school districts in the state of Florida, we’re the only one without additional revenue that’s coming in. So how do you ask me to compete with other large districts? I would not be going out, asking our taxpayers for an additional mill, unless it was absolutely necessary. And in Hillsborough County, it’s absolutely necessary because we can’t compete salary-wise. I just negotiated with teachers and we got our teacher salary to $48,000. I’m sitting with Manatee right across and they’re starting with $55,000.

Are there casual conversations where people push back?

Yes. “How, in your first year, are you asking for a tax already?” “Have you done everything you could do within your budget?” I explain, absolutely. Could I keep cutting, cutting, cutting? Sure. But it’s still not going to make up for $177 million that we bring in.

Shifting to test results, primarily English language arts, we see Hillsborough getting better on average, but the state making bigger improvements. You’ve highlighted a five-point improvement in third grade reading, from 46% passing to 51%. How important is that?

That’s the most important metric. You know that from pre-K to grade 3, you’re learning how to read. And after third grade, it flips to reading to learn. I’ve told the School Board, as they hold me accountable, that’s the needle that I want to move, and move a lot. As we do that, everything else down the line will work itself out. And then, ultimately, the graduation rates. As a school district, if you want to know what kind of job we’re doing, look at third grade proficiency and look at your graduation rates.

You’ve also pointed out that high school students are passing AP and IB exams at higher rates. But at the other end, especially in the 32 schools that had Ds and Fs, there are still a lot of low scores.

Our grade 10 (reading) proficiency went up two points to 52%. And that is a graduation benchmark. Where we struggle is from grade three to grade 10, and my goal is proficiency. Proficiency gets them across the stage at graduation. What holds kids back is reading proficiency.

What are you looking forward to this school year?

Number one, I want to make sure our community understands that attendance matters. No more excuses about, “I just don’t feel like going to school today.” We have data around our proficiency numbers. Look at students who are in school more than 90% of the time, and then less than 90%. It’s like a 20% difference in proficiency just on attendance. It’s insane! We can have great teachers. But if students aren’t coming to school, we lose that affect of having great teachers.

What else is new this year?

Freedom High School has a new business academy. Wharton, a cybersecurity program. East Bay has a new gaming simulation program. We have AICE (Advanced International Certificate of Education) in all 28 of our high schools. So every student in our county has the opportunity to earn a Bright Futures scholarship.

What do you worry about?

There’s not a worry. It’s just trying to do all we can to support everyone. There’s never enough time, but there’s nothing specific. Last year there were some changes out of the legislature. This year there’s not really much at all. Safety and security is always at the forefront for us, but we have a great team in place. We’ll see where our school grades end up. Our teachers work hard and our principals work hard. I hope the results we see are indicative of the hard work.