New Lee Co. acting superintendent has long to-do list

Published: Updated:

FORT MYERS, Fla.- Wednesday was the first full day Dr. Greg Adkins served as superintendent of the Lee County School District.

“We do have something that will keep us moving forward, and that is our strategic plan,” said board member Pam LaRiviere during a workshop.

Dr. Adkins now has an extremely full to-do list while running a $1.5 billion-a-year operation.

“This really did hit the district at the worst time possible,” said board member Steven Teuber.

Teuber tells WINK News he and the board are completely behind Dr. Atkins to lead the district and believe he is the right person to take on this challenge.

“He is a good soldier, always done what he needed to do in HR when he first came. He got moved over to operations, he has really done what has always needed to be done,” said Teuber.

Teuber says the board will need to vote on a new student testing schedule for the next school year, required by state law to be in place by October 1.

“Right now, we have no way to do our VAM scores, our teacher evaluations, all of the things that we need to have with the proper testing approvals schedule we don’t have,” said Teuber.

The district also has to finalize plans on where the new Bonita high school will go and the board will borrow money to pay for the new school.

Thousands of district employees also need to take a bullying training course after parent Jaquelin Perez complained to the U.S. Department of Education about her daughter being bullied at Lexington Middle School. A school district spokesperson says the training hasn’t started but it has to be completed by October 15.

All of the large tasks are now to be handled by Dr. Greg Adkins.

“He knows he is in over his head. Nobody could step in to that job and not feel, unless you are so ignorant to think you got it handled, I got this, he knows I don’t got this, but I am going to go in with the best effort that I got with my team and we are going to make it work,” said Teuber.

“And that is the attitude we need. This board is going to get around him and make him successful and we are going to make it work,” said Teuber.

Copyright ©2024 Fort Myers Broadcasting. All rights reserved.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without prior written consent.