Ep 191 | Academically talented middle schoolers have a new home at PHS

SPEAKER_01 0:00

One of the benefits to coming to PHS for seventh and eighth grade is that you will have a smaller cohort of a class. So instead of going to a middle school where you might have two to three hundred students in your cohort at PHS, you're presumably going to have less than 100 in your cohort. So that provides you with the opportunity to really get to know your classmates in your grade level really well and hopefully create sort of like a tight bond with them.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every child in Escambia County. You'll meet the real people behind the titles and learn about the amazing resources to support your child's success. If you're a parent of an academically gifted child, you know that having rigorous curriculum is important. But what are your options if they're not even in high school yet? My next guest is helping parents strike while the iron is hot. She's the principal at Pensacola High School, where they're launching an on-campus seventh and eighth grade enrollment for academically gifted students. Today she's going to address parent concerns, student benefits, and campus culture. Leading from the front, looking ahead, and moving up. Amy Gordon. Thanks for being here. Hi, thank you for having me. I put the moving up part because PHS just went from a C to a B school. So do you want to start with a little brag fest?

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Absolutely. I love PHS. We have an extraordinary team of educators and support staff who have helped us improve student performance. We are very fortunate to have Title I funds that help us employ a full-time graduation coach.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Can we unpack that? A graduation coach? Yes, ma'am.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Can you tell me about that? I've never heard of this. This is uh Mr. Alban is our graduation coach, and he tracks our student performance and student attendance. He provides daily check-ins and provides testing tutoring. He works with our visiting teacher to do home visits. He's really just our point of contact for any student who might be off track for graduation, and he helps them get back on track. What a cool job, first of all. And how cool that you get to have him. Yes, we are very blessed to have him. He's been in this role now for several years, and he's an asset to our team. What has that done to your graduation numbers? So our graduation rate rose from 78% to 88% two years ago. And then this past year, the 2025 graduating class, we were over 90%. That's amazing. You must feel like to the moon about that. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. So, you know, we are united in education for the success of every child. And part of our job as high school educators is to have them walk across that stage on graduation day and have them receive their high school diploma. So, of course, getting those numbers as high as we possibly can is always in the forefront of our mind. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Can you set the stage for kind of the rest of our discussion with the history of Pensacola High School? Because it's pretty, pretty special.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Yeah, so Pensacola High School opened as the first public school for boys in Pensacola in 1870. It was on Wright Street, and then it moved to Lee Square. Um, in 1905, it became known as Pensacola Senior High School, and it is the oldest secondary school in Pensacola. It moved to its current location on Maxwell Street in 1952, and we just completed an extensive multi-year renovation this past summer that included new flooring, air conditioning, ceilings, paint, furniture. Our front entrance got remodeled. Um we have landscaping, we have covered walkways. It's a beautiful little community school in the heart of the city of Pensacola. Oh, that's incredible. I didn't know that it was a boys' school. A boys' school first, yes, in 1870.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Wow. That's so special that students can feel really proud of the space that they're in while also knowing it's super historic.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah, we have a fantastic school culture, and our alumni is very proud to be an alumni of Pensacola High School. So we're very fortunate and very blessed that we have the community support for our school that we have.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

And it's kind of like three schools in one, right? Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So we have our traditional high school program, we have an international baccalaureate program, and then we're also an ESOL Center school. So just to speak a little bit about each one of those programs, so we have our traditional high school, of course. We offer career academies in culinary, health science, skill trades, and we also have a welding program which offers dual enrollment credit through Georgetown. We received AP honor roll silver status last year for our AP course offerings and for our student participation in those courses and their achievement in those courses. And then we have our international baccalaureate program that was established in 1986 and is the only IB program in Northwest Florida. The PHS IB is the only school in Northwest Florida with national merit commended scholars, semifinalists, and finalists every year for the past 21 years. That's wild. It's extraordinary. And then we have our ESOL Center School, and our ESOL Center School is for our district English language learners. Um, ourselves and Pine Forest are the two ESOL Center high schools in Eskimby County School District. And that just continues to enhance our culturally enriched and diverse student population.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Wow, and that's amazing. That's quite the accolades.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yes. I mean, we have a fantastic faculty that supports all three programs. And our students are not separated on our campus. I mean, they are all intertwined, they all take similar classes or some of the same classes, and we have just a really engaged student body.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

So now the next chapter of the history for the high school is adding a program for academically talented seventh and eighth graders. But how did that come about? Was it based off of an existing model?

SPEAKER_01 6:07

So we don't have an existing model like this in Escambia County currently. We do have several elementary schools that currently offer a sixth grade as an option. Um and so this provides an option for them to move from their sixth grade in their elementary school to uh a seventh and eighth grade in our district that that then can feed into our high school programs as well.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

So, what inspired the idea of giving advanced seventh and eighth graders a place to plug into at this particular high school?

SPEAKER_01 6:39

So it provides additional opportunities for our parents, right? So we want our students in Escambia County to and our parents to have as many opportunities as possible. And so this just provides an additional opportunity for our parents and our students to really plug into our school district, to be here and to be engaged. What qualifies a student as academically talented? So we look at a student's test scores, um, we look at their middle school performance, uh their grades, their both their quarter one grades, and we'll look at their quarter two grades as well. For this first year, we are also looking at you know attendance of course and behavior as well. But mostly we just want a student who can really plug into our school culture and be a tiger and uh really engage with our students and our faculty.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

So it's really that individualized, or is this a work in progress? Because I hate to, you know, hold you two, your feet to the fire of this is the process. Is it going to be case by case evaluating each application?

SPEAKER_01 7:41

So we have had students who have applied through the enrollment services. It was part of their open enrollment options when they did open enrollment this past fall. Our accelerated program provides students access to accelerated math and science coursework as well as additional options for acceleration and world language courses. We have, as a high school, we already have the infrastructure established in terms of producing students who are strongly prepared for college through our IB program. And so this further helps to establish students' preparedness and acclamation to high school, as well as their readiness to enter IB if they choose to do so and stay on with us for ninth grade.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Okay, that makes so much sense to me now that you kind of put those two together. I, for whatever reason, I hadn't before. So these these are students who they need a challenge. And so they're not just doing seventh and eighth grade at PHS. They are going into a specific elevated curriculum in order to potentially continue that elevated curriculum in the IB program once they're in ninth through 12th.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Correct. So if they choose to stay on and enter the IB program, they would have priority acceptance to our IB program at the high school level if they choose to stay on with us. But part of being in seventh and eighth grade at PHS provides students with the preparedness and acclimation to high school because the transition from eighth grade to ninth grade can be challenging. And so a student who presumably does seventh and eighth grade at PHS would already have an established relationship with our teachers and our faculty. They would already be acclimated to our school culture and our school expectations. And so that transition could potentially be easier for them if they stay with us through ninth and twelfth grade.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

So when you did the renovation at PHS, did that include more classrooms for these new students, or are you placing them in existing space?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

So we have existing space available. And so as part of the renovation, as we were renovating classrooms, we were also transitioning teachers to different classrooms. And so through that process, we were able to create a wing that is now vacant, which is where we will accommodate our middle school classes, the majority of our middle school classes.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Okay, because that was the other question that I had that I'm sure you're getting a lot from the public because parents want to know wait, we're combining, you know, 12 and 13-year-olds with older teens. That sounds like not a good idea. But so they're they're gonna have their own wing.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

So the majority of their classes will be in their own wing. So we have 12 classrooms on the west side of our of our school building in our main building. ROTC is also housed there, so ROTC will remain there. But we have 12 empty classrooms that will hold our the majority of our middle school courses. Now we will have students who are going to be taking advanced math classes like algebra to honors. So if a student's taking an advanced class like that, so hypothetically, if I have an eighth grader who's taking algebra to honors, they would probably go into the high school algebra 2 honors class. So there will be some opportunities for students to have exposure to high school students, but the majority of their coursework will occur within their middle school wing. What about transportation? How does that work? So we've worked with transportation. They will provide trunk routes to our school from the students zoned attendance zone, which is very similar to what they do at Brown Barge. And so they will be able to receive transportation to our middle school program.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

As far as capacity, how many students can you take? And how many students have been accepted so far?

SPEAKER_01 11:20

So we have accepted 85 students total. We can take up to 157th graders and up to 178th graders, is our goal.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Okay. That's exciting. Very exciting. How are you getting, I mean, no, we're here now, so this is part of getting the word out. But other than this, how are you getting the word out to parents that this is an option?

SPEAKER_01 11:39

We did two open houses in this past fall leading up to the School Choice Expo. But we've also done billboards across Escambia County. Cody Struthers was instrumental in helping us get both billboards up and around. And then we've also have on our PHS website have a designated middle school page. So if parents want more information, they can go to that page and reach out to any of us at the school and we'll be happy to answer any questions for them.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

When you were at the first open house, what kind of feedback were you getting from parents? What was what were some of the comments and questions?

SPEAKER_01 12:13

So at our open house, we talked a lot about the planning and preparation that went into our middle school. We have been listening to the community and their needs and their concerns. We also created a school-based committee with several different shareholders on it to help guide us and provide us with insight as we went through the planning stages. Parents did have a lot of questions in terms of operations and how students will move throughout the day. And so one of the things that we talked about extensively was our Bell schedule, which will be the same Bell schedule as our high school students. We will have a separate breakfast area for middle school students, and we will also have a separate lunch for middle school students. We also will make tweaks to our master schedule so that we can schedule middle school students in as many separate classes as possible. For example, physical education classes. We don't want our middle school students and our high school students sharing locker room space. So we will schedule separate PE classes for middle school students so that they're not having those PE classes with high school students. We are also planning a staggered release time so that middle school students release first at the end of the school day prior to the high school students. So a lot of the questions and concerns that we received from parents, we feel like we've been able to adequately address through our planning and preparation. This concept came around last school year. So my team and I, we've had over a year to plan and prepare and to listen to the community's needs.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

It sounds like you have dotted every I and crossed every T. What will it be like once that first academic year has cycled through? What markers are you going to use to measure if this was a good idea or an idea that needs serious tweaking? That's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

So, in terms of markers of success, we want our students to be as best prepared after high school as possible. So a marker for success for us would be did our students come, were they engaged with our school culture? Are they meeting our academic expectations in terms of those milestones? I mean, honestly, at the end of the day, I want them to come and have a have an enriching and engaging educational experience. And so if they've come, if they've enjoyed their time in middle school, if they feel like they were safe, if they feel like they learned a lot, if they feel like they were able to make friends and engage with our teachers and if they they enjoy coming to school every day. I mean, that to me is success, right? Because I want our students to want to come to school and I want them to be engaged and I want them to have a good, a good experience while they're on our campus. So to me, that would be success. And of course, honestly, are they going to stay on, right? If they're coming for seventh grade, are they going to stay on for eighth grade? Are they going to stay on for ninth grade, right? That would be a marker of success because we want them to come and want to be there.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it sets you up for future success if they have a good experience. So outside of, you know, grades and data, if they look back with fondness on their experience, then when they have children, then they will be like, oh, you have to go to PHS and you've got to get in in the seventh grade and do all this. Because, you know, I do hear that about certain schools. And it's kind of neat because it's uh got that legacy feel.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

I would also say that one of the benefits to coming to PHS for seventh and eighth grade is that you will have a smaller cohort of a class. So instead of going to a middle school where you might have two to three hundred students in your cohort at PHS, you're presumably going to have less than 100 in your cohort. So that provides you with the opportunity to really get to know your classmates in your grade level really well and hopefully create a tight bond with them. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

How would parents get more information or possibly enroll their child in the seventh and eighth grade there?

SPEAKER_01 16:07

So at this point, open enrollment is closed. However, we do have applications available at our school. We're happy to give those to parents if they come into the school or if they reach out to me. I can also email them an application for them to complete and submit to me.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

As we close, you said in our pre-chat that you feel like Pensacola High School is, quote, a little secret treasure. Why is that?

SPEAKER_01 16:29

I see every day the extraordinary effort that our teachers, students, and faculty put in to our school. And it's extraordinary how engaged they are, how much they love being a tiger, how proudly they wear our maroon and white school colors. And it's phenomenal to see how we all come together to drive success for our students and to unite for the success of all the students at our school. Our teachers love our school so much and they pour so much time and energy and passion into what they do. And our students love our school so much. And it's just phenomenal to see the effort that everybody puts in every day. We just have so many extraordinary things happening every single day.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Well, thank you so much for coming and telling the story today because I know being on a podcast is a very strange experience. It's not a natural thing to be on a microphone, but it's so worth it that people will know a little bit about the past and the future of Pensacola High School. So thank you. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and share. Voices United in Education is a production of Escambia County Public Schools.