Education

Overview

Education has always been a priority for me. I grew up in St. Petersburg public schools and graduated from St. Pete High in 1974. My father served on the Pinellas County School Board. Two of my three sisters were public school teachers. I was the last elected Commissioner of Education in the state of Florida. I understand from every angle of my life that the pathway to long-term success runs through a strong education.

The Mayor of St. Petersburg does not have authority over the Pinellas County School District. What the Mayor does have is a powerful platform: convening authority, partnership reach, the ability to direct city resources toward student opportunity, and the credibility to advocate at the state and federal level for the funding St. Pete schools need.

I will use that platform. Promoting education is part of how we address affordability, and it is essential to economic development when we are recruiting major employers to St. Pete. A city with strong schools, strong vocational pathways, and a strong workforce attracts investment. A city without those things loses ground every year.

Here is what I will do as Mayor.

A. Mentorship That Rewards What We Want to See

The strongest predictor of student success is consistent adult support. Mentorship programs work. The challenge is scale, structure, and follow-through.

As Mayor, I will use the convening authority of the office to build a citywide mentorship program for St. Pete students. The program will reward students for the things we want to see them doing: attending school consistently, conducting themselves well in school and in the community, and engaging with the people and institutions around them. It will work in partnership with existing organizations doing this work well, including SAVE Promise Club programs, Take Stock in Children, the Boys and Girls Club, My Brother’s and Sister’s Keeper, and the network of community organizations already serving St. Pete youth.

Students who complete the mentorship program will be eligible for a robust scholarship pipeline that opens the door to a four-year college degree. I will work to expand existing scholarship partnerships, recruit new philanthropic support, and ensure that no St. Pete student who does the work loses the opportunity because of cost.

This is the kind of public-private partnership I have built my entire career around. Cover Florida was a public-private partnership. The Florida Discount Drug Card was a public-private partnership. The biotech recruitment I led as Governor was a public-private partnership. The mentorship and scholarship program will be the same: leveraging the convening power of the Mayor’s office, the resources of philanthropic and business partners, and the existing infrastructure of community organizations doing the work.

B. Real Vocational and Apprenticeship Pathways

Not every student is college-bound, and that is more than fine. Vocational and skilled-labor jobs are the backbone of American enterprise. They are also some of the best-paid jobs available to a young person leaving high school, and the demand for skilled tradespeople in Pinellas County is only growing as we rebuild from hurricanes and as the construction sector continues to expand.

As Mayor, I will establish a citywide apprenticeship program that gives St. Pete students real-world opportunities in trades including welding, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, construction, pipe fitting, carpentry, and the broader skilled trades. Apprentices will earn while they learn, end up with industry-recognized certifications, and step into the workforce with no student debt and a pathway to a strong middle-class income.

This is an economic development priority as much as an education priority. The skilled trade workforce we need to rebuild St. Pete after major storms, to deliver the St. Pete Agile Resilience program, to staff the Advanced Air Mobility opportunities, and to build the housing this city needs is not going to materialize on its own. We need to grow it deliberately. Investing in apprenticeship is the most direct route.

I will work with the Pinellas County School District, St. Petersburg College, Pinellas Technical College, the trade unions, the construction industry, and major employers across the city to build the program. The apprenticeship pathway will be a partnership.

C. Teacher Recognition and Support

The foundation of any strong school system is its teachers. My commitment to teachers is well-documented: as Governor, in the depths of the Great Recession, I directed federal Recovery Act stimulus funds to preserve thousands of Florida teaching jobs at a time when school districts across the state were preparing to make catastrophic cuts. That decision kept teachers in classrooms when other states were laying them off.

As Mayor, I will continue that commitment in the ways the office allows.

I will establish a citywide program to recognize exemplary St. Pete teachers, working with the Pinellas County School District and the Pinellas Education Foundation to identify teachers whose work goes above and beyond, and to give them the public recognition their work deserves. Recognition is not a substitute for the pay teachers deserve, and the Mayor of St. Petersburg cannot set teacher salaries. But the Mayor can use the office to publicly elevate teachers as the essential professionals they are.

I will also look at establishing a city-supported education grant fund to help teachers fund special projects, classroom innovations, and programs that improve students’ academic experience. This is the kind of supplemental support that costs the city very little and means a great deal to teachers who too often pay for classroom supplies and special programs out of their own pockets.

D. Out-of-School Time and Youth Opportunity

What happens to St. Pete students between 3:00 PM and 6:00 PM, and during the summer months, matters as much as what happens during the school day. Students with access to enriching after-school programs, summer learning opportunities, and supervised recreational activities do better academically, socially, and behaviorally.

As Mayor, I will direct city resources toward expanding out-of-school programming, particularly in West and South St. Pete where access to enrichment opportunities has been historically uneven. The city’s Parks and Recreation system, the public library system, and the community centers across the city are already serving thousands of students through programming most St. Pete residents do not even know exists.

I will make sure residents know what is available. I will direct the city’s communication infrastructure toward making sure every St. Pete family knows what programs their children can access. I will work to expand programming where the demand is highest and the access is lowest.

E. Education as Economic Development

Strong schools and strong vocational pathways are how a city attracts major employers. The biotech recruitment work I led as Governor depended on it. The Advanced Air Mobility opportunity I described elsewhere depends on it. The Moffitt Cancer Center campus the current administration killed would have depended on it. Every major economic development opportunity St. Pete pursues runs through workforce, and workforce runs through education.

As Mayor, I will treat education partnerships as core economic development infrastructure. The relationships between the city, the Pinellas County School District, St. Petersburg College, USF St. Petersburg, Pinellas Technical College, and the trade education ecosystem are the foundation of every major employer recruitment I will lead. I will invest in those relationships the same way I will invest in the relationships with the Downtown Partnership and the Chamber of Commerce.

My Record

I have served Florida’s students at every level of government.

As Florida’s last elected Commissioner of Education, I championed school safety in the wake of the era’s mounting concerns about violence in schools. I convened eight regional School Safety and Security Summits across Florida in 2001, bringing together educators, parents, law enforcement, students, and community leaders to identify what was working and what needed to change. The summits produced the “Voices from the Field” report, which became a foundational document for Florida school safety practice. The office of Commissioner of Education was made an appointed position by the Florida Legislature shortly after my term. I remain the last person to have held the job directly accountable to the voters of Florida.

As Florida’s Governor, I made a decision in the depths of the Great Recession that I am still proud of. The federal Recovery Act offered states the option of using stimulus funds to preserve teaching jobs in the face of catastrophic state revenue shortfalls. Other governors refused the funds. I accepted them, and I directed them specifically to preserving teaching jobs across Florida. Thousands of teachers stayed in classrooms because of that decision. It was a partisan controversy at the time, and it cost me politically. It was the right thing to do for Florida’s students, and I would make the same decision again.

As a member of Congress on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, I delivered for St. Petersburg students. I secured $1 million in National Science Foundation funding for St. Petersburg College’s Tampa Bay Bridge to Baccalaureate Alliance, a program specifically designed to support Black and Hispanic students pursuing STEM degrees and four-year baccalaureate paths. I fought for historic increases in NSF funding overall, helping push the agency budget to $8.55 billion in 2021. I secured $3 million in federal HUD appropriations for the Science Center. I secured $901,000 for the Southside St. Petersburg Community Center upgrades, work that serves the youth and families who depend on that facility every day.

As a public school kid myself, raised in St. Pete, with a school board member father and public school teacher sisters, I have lived the value of strong public education from inside the system. I have spent my entire career advocating for the students, teachers, and families who make that system work.

That is the experience and the commitment I will bring to City Hall.