The Panhandle Area Educational Consortium, known as PAEC for 50
years, is a regional educational service organization owned by its
member school districts and recognized in Florida Statute 1001.451.
Created in 1967 by the school districts of Bay, Calhoun, Franklin, Gulf,
Holmes, Jackson, Liberty, Walton and Washington in northwest Florida,
PAEC is Florida’s first regional educational service agency established
as a non-profit, non-regulatory organization to provide cooperative,
educational services. The consortium is operated through the PAEC Board
of Directors, composed of the school superintendents from the member
districts and Washington County School Board, a member district, serves
as its District of Record.
PAEC grew from an early recognition by
school district superintendents that they could achieve better results
for their students by working cooperatively. Long before PAEC was
created, individual counties in the Panhandle area were cooperating in
areas of mutual interest, such as shared media centers, testing programs
and special education. Jackson and Holmes counties, Washington and Bay
counties, and Calhoun, Franklin, Gulf and Liberty counties shared
cooperative film libraries, for example.
In 1959, the Chipola Area
Education Project (CAEP) was formed as a result of a NDEA, Title V
Grant. This project was established to improve testing, evaluation and
guidance services among the following member counties: Calhoun, Gulf,
Holmes, Jackson, Liberty, Walton and Washington. Early in 1967, talk
began about further cooperation among the CAEP school systems. Under the
leadership of Jackson County School Superintendent, John Dekle Milton, a
meeting of the school superintendents from the seven counties that made
up the CAEP was called, and representatives from Bay and Franklin
counties were invited. At this meeting, a plan was formulated for what
became the Panhandle Area Educational Cooperative. Nine counties joined
together to write the proposal for funding under ESEA, Title III. In
July 1967, the proposal was approved, and a grant of $103,000 was
awarded; thus, the Panhandle Area Educational Cooperative was born.
During 1967-68, other supplemental educational centers for rural areas
in Florida were funded. However, PAEC is the only originally funded
regional educational center that survived.
Current services
include professional development, curriculum support services, Florida
Diagnostic and Learning Resources System (FDLRS), instructional
technology, distance learning, Migrant Education Program services,
printing services, FloridaLearns Clearinghouse for educational
materials, Florida Buy cooperative state purchasing, contracted
services, Students with Emotional/Behavioral Disabilities Network
(SEDNET), program evaluation services, model school board policies and
procedures, Risk Management Property/Casualty, employee benefits
self-insurance programs, Gateway Educational Computing (payroll and
finance), and Student Data Services.
In early 2016, PAEC assembled
a group of stakeholders from member districts and various roles within
the organization to create a revised mission/vision to guide the
organization into its second 50 years of regional leadership. This
framework will guide our work as our organization continues to grow,
lead, and anticipate the changing needs of our districts. In the spring
of 2017, PAEC was accredited by AdvancED as an Educational Service
Agency.
Today, PAEC continues under the leadership of its Board of
Directors. Its member districts include Calhoun, Franklin, Gadsden,
Gulf, Holmes, Jackson, Jefferson, Liberty, Madison, Taylor, Wakulla,
Walton and Washington counties and the Florida Agricultural &
Mechanical University (FAMU) Developmental Research School. The key to
the organization and its success continues to be that the responsibility
for the consortium is placed directly in the hands of the school
superintendents of the districts it serves.