The city’s first summit dedicated to bumping up high school graduation rates began with a charge to the several hundred people in attendance.
"Our children's future is in our hands," Alma Powell told the audience. "When that future comes, how will they remember us? Will we be remembered as the ones who undertook the work of building a GradNation? The people who were wise enough and cared enough to invest in our children's futures? Let's answer that by saying 'Yes.'"
The wife of former U.S. Press Secretary Colin Powell provided the opening remarks for the daylong conference of discussion and brainstorming.
About 425 attendees registered for the city's GradNation Community Summit in the downtown Main Library. The city is one of 100 across the country selected to put on the event, sponsored by youth advocacy group America's Promise Alliance, which Powell chairs.
The GradNation summits are aimed at bringing communities across the country together to work on improving local graduation rates. The goal is to achieve a 90 percent rate by 2020.
Currently, the nation's overall graduation rate is nearly 80 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
In Duval County, last year about 72 percent of high school students graduated, up from about 68 percent the year before and just 56 percent in 2008-09. The county's graduation rate still lags behind the statewide rate of about 76 percent.
"In Jacksonville, we still have a long way to go but we've already made major progress," said Mayor Alvin Brown.
Brown said his ultimate goal is to ensure that every student graduates.
"I want 100 percent graduation in this city," he said.
Panels of business leaders, youth advocates, educators and students spent the morning discussing what it will take to get there.
Among the morning's panelists were Brown; Duval Schools Superintendent Nikolai Vitti; Betty Burney, founder of the I'm A Star Foundation and a former school board member; and Darnell Smith, who heads Florida Blue's North Florida Region. Florida Times-Union Executive Editor Frank Denton served as moderator.
"We know our brand is only as good as the community behind it," Smith said.
Vitti said a large part of more graduates and lower dropout rates comes from rallying behind the district's public schools, which have recently seen large drops in student enrollment.
"We are at a critical point," he said. "We have to mobilize around traditional public education."
Later in the morning, a panel of students from Stanton College Preparatory High School, Terry Parker High School, Bishop Kenny High School, Raines High School and Florida State College at Jacksonville weighed in on the conversation, sharing their stories and insights on succeeding in school.
The students touched on a range of issues from bullying to the importance of mentors to advice for other students who are considering dropping out.
"We all have purpose in life," said panelist Mercedes Trapp, who is a sophomore at FSCJ. "We're all here for a reason."
Later, attendees broke off into workshops to discuss new efforts to improve graduation rates through early education, literacy, middle school mentorship and black male achievement initiatives.
Those workshop sessions were followed by review and analysis of the community's long-term and short-term goals and ways to take action.
Brown said the city plans to roll out new initiatives resulting from the conference over the next few months, although he did not provide a specific timeline. City officials will also attend the national GradNation Community Summit in Washington, D.C. later this month.
"Communities like Jacksonville from all over the country will come together to discuss best practice and to hear what others are doing, and get new ideas about this crusade that we're on," Powell said. "We have to think of it as a crusade and it's not one that has an end. The kids keep coming."
For Bishop Kenny High School junior Matthew Iglesias, who served as a panelist during the day, the community turnout was overwhelming.
"The amount of people here who are willing to come here to work together just blew me away," he said. "It shows that everyone is getting involved. It's just not a few select people. Everybody wants to do their part to make Jacksonville a better place."
You can follow Rhema Thompson on Twitter @RhemaThompson.
