$43M Rutledge H. Pearson Elementary, first new Duval school from sales tax, opens to crowd
Three years after Duval County voters approved a sales tax to fund a vast school construction and maintenance program, school officials on Thursday celebrated completing a school commemorating a storied teacher and civil rights leader.
The new Rutledge H. Pearson Elementary is the first public school built in Jacksonville in 12 years, replacing one with the same name that opened six decades ago in a Northside neighborhood with a history of unmet needs.
Hundreds of residents, school employees and community figures came to the simple ribbon-cutting and walked the building to see how the place had changed.
"This is history," said activist Eunice Barnum, whose great-grandchild will attend the school named for a late head of Jacksonville’s NAACP. "We fought so hard for this."
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The turnout to mark the first building completed with the half-penny sales tax underscored the hopes neighborhoods have held for the school-building plan.
“I had no idea that this place was going to be so packed,” Mayor Donna Deegan told a crowd, whom she reminded that “every single student in Duval County deserves the opportunity to thrive.”
The new school replaces a deteriorated structure built about 60 years ago as Sherwood Forest Elementary that was renamed after Pearson in 1994. Its namesake was a one-time Negro League baseball player who taught American history at Isaiah Blocker Junior High School, advised NAACP Youth Council members and coached the New Stanton High School baseball team. He became president of the NAACP's Florida State Conference and a member of the national NAACP's board of directors.
In recent years, a student body of fewer than 200 had made the school inefficiently small as well as deteriorated.
But a $1.9 billion facilities plan the school district developed before the half-penny sales tax was proposed called for merging Pearson with two other elementary schools — Martin Luther King Jr. near the Ribault River and Henry F. Kite on Lem Turner Road.
Students were shifted out of the school and into King last year as contractors dismantled the old building and erected its replacement.
The school’s new incarnation, built for just over $43 million, is designed to hold 906 students in a two-story building that can double as a hurricane shelter.
It’s a far cry from the outdated building that previosly carried Pearson's name.
Classrooms are outfitted with digital boards where teachers and students can write with their fingers work that’s erased at the touch of a button as the board raises or lowers to suit a person’s height. Teachers will work with microphones that transmit their voices to speakers in the ceiling made to make each lesson audible for everyone.
Besides rows of new books, the school media center contains dozens of computer terminals.
But speakers at the day’s events told parents their involvement will also be needed for students to get the most out of the new school.
“We have to continue to pack this room for PTA meetings,” state Rep. Angie Nixon, D-Jacksonville, told people filling a cafetorium.
Saying her own daughter is close to entering elementary school, she said people should see the classrooms as the source for new generations of doctors, engineers and leaders who will shape Jacksonville’s future.
“Let’s continue to ensure we get what we deserve,” Nixon said. “But we have to put in the work.”
Replacements are under construction for two other schools, Highland Elementary and Southside Estates Elementary, both scheduled for completion in August 2024. A completely new school, Chaffee Trail Middle School on the Westside, is also under construction and due by August 2024.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: 'This is history': Duval schools open first site paid for by sales tax
