Fall InBRIEF 2012

In the fall of 2011, the Jacksonville Public Education Fund set out with the help of dozens of volunteers on an effort to go into every part of our community and hear first-hand the hopes, concerns, questions and ideas that the citizens of Duval County have for the future of education in our community - in their own words. Over the course of the past year, and 161 face-to-face conversations with nearly 1,600 community members in homes, businesses, churches, and other organizations throughout every region of the county -we have done just that.
 

In this report, we present the findings of what was heard. Across all regions of the community we found that people are energized to be more involved in decisions affecting the future of education and have some very specific ideas about what they think needs to be done.
 

From hundreds of hours of recorded conversations, and over a thousand pages of transcribed notes, 15 distinct themes consistently emerged as representing the most important issues to people throughout the community, along with 50 specific subthemes that describe what people would like to see done about them.

Throughout the coming months, we will be using the findings presented in this report to return back to the community, inform them of what we heard from across the county, and use this information as a foundation for developing a communitywide agreement on our priorities, responsibilities, and goals for the future of education in Duval County.