Vin'Tavia Gaines, right, reads the fifth grade address during a promotion ceremony at Susie Tolbert Elementary on Friday, May 23, 2025. She is joined by classmate Danielle Fenner. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today
Published on May 29, 2025 at 12:08 pm
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This week, six Jacksonville schools that have educated children for a combined 450 years will forever close their doors.
What was decided by seven politicos in a boardroom by the river is now being felt by scores of students, parents and school faculty in the Sandalwood, Grand Park, Windy Hill and Woodstock neighborhoods.
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‘I belong to you’
Lana Jean Johnson quips that at 82-years-old, she would have plenty of time on her hands and enough seniority to “raise hell” to save Annie R. Morgan Elementary, the school she first attended as a second-grader in 1950. But she acknowledges it’s too late for that.
“I was an only child. It was really important to come to school so I could be around other children,” Johnson recalls as she stands beside former schoolmates Jimmy Rhoden, 83, and Jackie Ferreira, 81, on May 16, in the same hallway they walked as children.
Annie R. Morgan Elementary has served students on the Westside for 109 years. Its closing ceremony attracted several septuagenarians, a current Jacksonville City Council member who once sent her children to the school as well dozens of others who wanted to walk the halls of the O-shaped school one last time.
Boyz II Men’s 1992 hit “End of the Road” played on the loudspeaker as returning students were celebrated by the current Annie Morgan Wildcats.
“I don’t see the reason for it (to close),” Johnson says to avoid crying. “This looks good to me. They are tearing it down and it doesn’t make sense.”
In November, as part of a cost-saving move that could close more than a dozen schools overall, the Duval County School Board approved the closure of three elementary schools this week: Annie R. Morgan; Don R. Brewer in Arlington and Susie Tolbert in Grand Park.
Today, all three schools have predominantly Black student bodies from historically under-resourced neighborhoods.
R.V. Daniels Elementary in Northwest Jacksonville is also closing this week, based on an earlier school board decision.
‘We are one’
This is also the last week Windy Hill Elementary exists as an independent school. In 2023, the district broke ground on a new Southside Estates Elementary with funding it obtained through the 2020 half-penny sales tax referendum. When the new Southside Estates opens in August, it will have enough capacity to incorporate students from both Windy Hill and the former Southside Estates campus.
Administrators at Southside Estates and Windy Hill collaborated on extra-curricular activities throughout the academic year to help smooth the transition from two student bodies into one. Their efforts culminated in a joint performance this spring of a musical called The High Seas.
“You could see the smiles. You could see them joining forces together,” Windy Hill Principal Lecreshia Harris said at the April performance. “It didn’t just begin today. …We had play day together. We have had a skate night together. We have done several things to bring the students together. Not only the students, but the families, because we know that transitions are difficult. I can only imagine for a child what it feels like, because I know as an adult it’s hard for us.”
Southside Estates Principal Teresa Brown said, “The leaders are the ones who set the tone for the entire consolidation process, which is not an easy process.”
Setting sail on a new adventure
Amariah Jay is finishing fourth grade at Windy Hill.
Amariah had never participated in a play before The High Seas and appreciated the opportunity to show her talents in the play about sailors who are marooned and saved by pirates.
“It was fun,” Amariah says. “The people at Southside are pretty cool. …I’ve met new friends for next year when I go to fifth grade.”
More than 50 third-, fourth- and fifth-graders participated in the musical. Some were mermaids, others were rocks, and a handful were introduced to technical theatre.
The students were directed by Southside Estates faculty member Kathleen Stermer, who repeatedly made the 3-mile drive over to Windy Hill for rehearsals.
Finish with a flourish
Not every school entered this academic year knowing this would be its last. In August, Duval Superintendent Christopher Bernier visited Susie Tolbert on the first day of class. Three months later, he submitted a proposal to close the school that has been in the Grand Park community for 74 years.
Fifth-grader Evyn Dugger attended Susie Tolbert only for this year. But she made it count. He made friends and was one of the school’s top students in reading, science and math. The faculty selected him to read a poem during a May 23 graduation ceremony.
Miriam Dugger blew a kiss to her son from the crowd as he finished.
“This school is really wonderful,” Dugger says. “They embraced him. The students, the teachers, they embraced him. I’ve never seen a school more prepared to welcome and help students.”
Preserving history, promising futures
The mother’s testimony likely would have made the namesake for her son’s school proud.
Susie Ella Middleton Tolbert, Annie R. Morgan and Roosevelt Verdell Daniels were all champions of education in Jacksonville. Framed images of all three hang in prominent places at the campuses named after them.
Morgan was an educator at what was initially known as the Seaboard Shop School. To celebrate her nearly 30-year tenure as an early principal at the school on St. Clair Street, the building was named in her honor.
Tolbert taught applied social etiquette at what is now Edward Waters University and also lobbied for improved facilities and equipment for Black children in Jacksonville.
Daniels was a bus contractor who served as president of the Duval County Council of PTAs and the Florida Council on Human Rights.
“My dad was kind of quiet in the things he did,” Henry Daniels says. “He supported and encouraged us to do what we wanted to do. He supported me in my education career 100%.”
Henry Daniels is 93. He is a retired Duval County educator who attended the closing ceremony at R.V. Daniels Elementary with his wife, Tina, and younger sister Eleanor Daniels-Mumford this month.
It was a full-circle moment for fifth-year Principal Johnny O. Bryant III. He was a student at R.V. Daniels 35 years ago.
During the May 15 closing celebration, Bryant remembered how large the school once seemed. He says his classes were in Room 13 and Room 14.
“You do your best every day because you’re a reflection not only on your family, but, of course, the people who have instilled values in you. You’re a reflection of all that,” Bryant told students. “I’ve gained friends here along the way. I still connect with some to this day.”
One of those people is Renee Pressley, a former R.V. Daniels student who went to to a career with the school district and sent her son to the school from 2015 to 2018. She says R.V. Daniels set the foundation for her son’s academic success, which will culminate in his graduation from Ribault High on Friday.
The faculty at R.V. Daniels may have implored the students to “S.O.A.R. in style,” but that was not always easy in the school’s final year.
In November, beloved cafeteria worker Denise Tolbert suddenly died. She was 56. Most mornings, Tolbert had sat on a bench and welcomed students as they entered school while she waited for her young grandchildren to catch a bus to their school.
In February, Yolanda McCray died a few months after receiving a terminal diagnosis. She was 62. Before her illness spread, McCray was named the school’s 2025 Teacher of the Year.
A community education
Current J. Allen Axson Elementary Principal Cecilia Robinson-Vanhoy taught at R.V. Daniels for 13 years. She says the school and its community made her a better educator.
“You have been in a place of glory here,” Robinson-Vanhoy said during the May 15 closing celebration. “I wish all the students all the success in life. I expect all of you to go to college, and in 10 or 15 years you will say R.V. Daniels was on your journey as well.”
R.V. Daniels opened in 1964 to alleviate overcrowding at Susie Tolbert. The two schools are so close, the sound of children on the playground can be heard on both campuses.
This fall, the corner of 13th Street and Pullman Avenue, which often teamed with children from both schools, will be silent.
Elisha Morgan, 11, says that means she will always be remembered because she’s in Susie Tolbert’s final fifth-grade class.
“Honestly, I love Susie Tolbert!” Elisha said. “It was so fun. This is where I met a lot of friends.”
As her niece received her certificate, Courtney Hicks cheered loudly enough to make sure Elisha knew she is “Titi’s baby!”
Hicks, Morgan and Alizaya Stacey were among the people who came to celebrate Elisha. When a different Susie Tolbert student could not hear her name called, the three sprang into action to inform Principal Amanda Cardoza.
The child’s tears were dried by a standing ovation from every parent, sibling and supporter in attendance.
Susie Tolbert, R.V. Daniels and Annie Morgan are schools small enough that faculty and staff not only know every student but also the names of the loved ones in the car line every morning and which students walk to school.
Samaria Morgan, Elisha’s mother, says the school gave her child the reassurance that she has a village.
“We are not saying goodbye to this place,” Bryant, the outgoing R.V. Daniels principal, said during the ceremony, “but…I will see you around.”
Disclosure: Reporter Will Brown’s son, Ben, is a student at R.V. Daniels Elementary, and his wife is the school’s PTA president. The last picture is of Ben (right) and his best friend, Caden Kimbrough, a friendship that was forged at R.V. Daniels Elementary.
