Should $7.5M go to the Sarasota County School District or to the Building Industry Institute?
This article was submitted by Julie Forestier, a leading member of SEE - Social Equity and Education Should $7.5M go to the Sarasota County School District, or t o Theresa Mast’s husband's Building Industry Institute? Background: The Sarasota County Commission dedicated $15M of Hurricane Ian Relief funds to workforce development. Sarasota County School District (SCSD) applied for this funding for North Port Technical College , but was told to not apply for more than half because there were other organizations that would be applying for these funds too. As a result the district only applied for $7.5M, even though SCSD needs $21M for the project. There were only two other organizations that applied for the funding- one that wasn’t even considered for the funds, and the Suncoast Builders Association’s newly registered non-profit, the Building Industry Institute (BII) , which has no track record of workforce development training. As a result, the School distric...