Hurricane Idalia will make landfall in western Florida Wednesday and rapidly transit across the state, impacting at least western Flagler County with tropical storm force winds and rain. Flagler County schools will be closed Wednesday. A combined general population and special needs shelter will open at Rymfire Elementary in late afternoon Tuesday.
Flagler, Palm Coast & Other Local News
In Time for Idalia, Sales Tax ‘Holiday’ on Disaster Supplies in Effect Until Sept. 8
Retailers hope Floridians will stock up on storm supplies during the sales-tax “holiday” that started Saturday, particularly as the increasingly active hurricane season is bringing Hurricane Idalia through a vast portion of the state later this week. The state’s second “disaster preparedness” tax holiday of the year continues through Sept. 8.
DeSantis Wants Children to Be Ignorant, Intolerant and Narrow-Minded
In Ron DeSantis’ Florida, teachers are expected to present a version of the world in which “gender” is not to be spoken of, “gay” likewise, there’s no climate crisis — the weather’s always changing! — Shakespeare needs to be toned down, the human body is disgusting, slavery had an upside, America is the best country that ever was and ever will be, and books that challenge any of these self-evident truths must be banned.
White Supremacist Murders 3 Black People at Dollar General in Jacksonville, Before Shooting Himself
Sheriff T.K. Waters said two males and one female — all Black — were killed in the shootings, and the shooter killed himself. He had been armed with an AR-15 style rifle and a handgun, with the rifle showing several swastikas. At the time of the news conference, the shooter’s name had not yet been identified, but Sheriff Waters said the man had authored manifestos that were provided to his parents, the media, and federal agents. The sheriff referenced the “disgusting ideology of hate.”
Flagler Schools Have a ‘Subgroup’ Problem. It’s Not Blacks. It’s Not Even Students.
It is now so routine to reduce individual students to cogs among subgroups enslaved to the expectations of standardized testing that our educators have lost sight of their purpose. The state’s transformation of education into a dehumanizing machinery is to blame. So is the Flagler County School Board’s emphasis on running the district as a business, and now branding its superintendent a “CEO.” The individuality and dignity of students is lost to a damaging bottom-line mentality.
Deep Disagreements Remain Between School District and Cities and Builders Over Enrollment and Impact Fee Dues
Are Flagler County’s public schools adding students? Will the district need to build new schools? Should it be drawing money from developers today even though it has no certain plans to build schools yet? Those questions were asked and answered with varying degrees of certainty and a lot more disagreements on Thursday in the latest meeting of a joint committee of local government representatives in charge of reviewing how much money developers are required to pay to defray the cost of new school construction.
Man Arrested at Flagler Beach’s Boardwalk for Swinging Bat, Threatening Adults and a Child and Calling Himself God
Stephen Douglass Torma, 43, swung a bat as he threatened passers by on Flagler Beach’s boardwalk, damaged the boardwalk with the bat then threatened a Flagler Beach police officer and his family with harm. Torma’s spiral has been traced in his court file over the last four years.
Flagler School Board Members Meet Behind Closed Doors to ‘Debrief’ Until Attorney Breaks Them Up
All five Flagler County School Board members met behind a closed door after a press conference this morning, until the school board attorney, who had been unaware of the meeting, broke them up. One of the board member insists no business before the board was discussed, and that the meeting was intended only to tell the superintendent she had done a good job at the press conference.
School Officials Forcefully Denounce ‘Segregation’ Assembly But Steps Ahead Are Vague Beyond ‘Conversations’
The denunciations were forceful and Interim Superintendent LaShakia Moore’s air of command over the most serious crisis of her tenure as interim was evident at a press conference this morning. But the steps ahead, beyond community meetings, more encounters with parents and students, and talk of “professional learning” with school employees, are far less clear even as the district positions itself against potential litigation.
Bunnell Principal Donelle Evensen on Administrative Leave as District Faces Fallout of Segregated Assembly
Donelle Evensen, the principal at Bunnell Elementary School for mere weeks, was placed on paid administrative leave today, and Superintendent LaShakia Moore asked that a three-hour board workshop scheduled for today, where she was to be interviewed for the permanent job, be postponed.