*This article originally appeared in Suncoast News.

BROOKSVILLE — Hernando County School Board voted 3-2 on Aug. 10 to renew an $83,000 agreement with Equal Opportunity Schools, a Seattle-based company that offers a program of accelerated college-credit courses to qualifying high schoolers.

The program seeks to identify students in under-served communities.

School Board members Shannon Rodriguez and Mark Johnson voted against the program, which they dubbed affirmative action. Rodriguez also called it a “discriminatory” program.

“In order to effectively close the achievement gap, we should put the funding on programs to help academically lower-performing students in lower grades, rather than the use of affirmative action and equity to do so,” Rodriguez said. “If you’re targeting a particular group for this program, killing meritocracy is not the way to go.”

Read the full article here.

For media inquiries contact:
Larry Swayne
Senior Director of Marketing and Communications
Larry.Swayne@EOSchools.org
206.806.4201