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VOLUME 113 ISSUE 21
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018 Published by Campus Communications, Inc. of Gainesville, Florida
Not officially associated with the University of Florida
UF to remain open during Hurricane Michael
The impacts of the storm will not be strong enough to shut down the school. THE MAYOR ISSUED A DECLARATION OF EMERGENCY. By Dana Cassidy Alligator Staff Writer
UF students won’t be able to put off their midterm studying with a hurricane day off.
Classes will continue as planned today. Further northwest on Tuesday, more than 180,000 people in the Florida Panhandle were under mandatory evacuation orders. At 9 p.m. Tuesday night, UF issued an email stating that Alachua County and City of Gainesville local government offices, Alachua County Public Schools and Santa Fe
College all plan to be open on Wednesday. The administration has been monitoring the storm and decided to keep classes going as scheduled, UF stated this afternoon. The university will make another announcement at 9 a.m. today, said UF spokesperson Steve Orlando. “The plan is to remain open from here go-
ing forward,” Orlando said. There has been no issued hurricane watch in the Gainesville area, so the impacts of the storm most likely will be minimal, Orlando said. As of 10 p.m. today, Hurricane Michael was moving at 12 miles per hour with maxi-
SEE MICHAEL, PAGE 4
Hug Me, Brotha! Drake Bell to High Dive By Tranelle Maner Alligator Staff Writer
Chris Houston / Alligator Staff
Horsing around Children offer treats to 6-year-old therapy horse, Gracie the Clydesdale, at the “Meet A Clydesdale” event at the Newberry branch of the Alachua County Library Monday night. The horse’s owner, 22-year-old UF veterinary student Kim Fiore, says Gracie weighs 1,400 pounds and eats a daily average of 50 pounds of food.
It looks like High Dive “found a way” to bring the 2000s to Gainesville. M a t t h e w Landoli never expected to see one Bell of his childhood favorites in North Florida. But now the 21-year-old UF finance senior hopes to hear the “Drake and Josh” theme song live in Gainesville. Musician and actor Drake Bell, known for his role in Nickelodeon’s “Drake and Josh,” will perform Dec. 4 at High Dive, located at 210 SW 2nd Ave. Doors open at 7 p.m., said Pat Lavery, the High Dive facility and events manager. General admission tickets for ages 18 and older are $15, and attendees under 21 will be charged
a $3 cover at the door. Meet-andgreet tickets will cost $100, Lavery said. Local opening acts will kick off the show at 8 p.m., followed by Bell’s hour-long set of his own songs and covers of bands like the Beach Boys and the Beatles, Lavery said. High Dive has not announced who will perform the opening acts. Bell was not sought out by High Dive. The agreement was made after his team reached out to the venue, Lavery said. Although Landoli kept up with Bell’s recent cover of “Gucci Gang” by Lil Pump, he said seeing him in person would be surreal. “I never expected someone that I watched as a 10-year-old to be performing in my college town and I would get a chance to see them almost 10 years later,” he said. @manertt tmaner@alligator.org
School Board racial equity plan faces criticism By Chris Day
Alligator Contributing Writer
Chanae Jackson-Baker never had a black teacher until she was in middle school. Born and raised in Gainesville, Jackson-Baker, 39, said she’s seen the disparity between white and black students firsthand. Before graduating from Eastside High School in 1997, she said she
was often the only black student in classes. She said that prior to having her first black teacher, Frankie Hill, she had never seen any black women doing anything successful. “I had no sense of my own identity,” she said. “I was very quiet and afraid to speak up in middle school. I just faded in the background.”
Moral Stephens becoming red-zone threat Find out what the fifth-year senior had to do during the summer to get him into shape, pg. 14
Representation was one of the issues on the agenda at a meeting Monday night at the DaySpring Missionary Baptist Church, at 1945 NE Eighth Ave., aimed at improving the new equity plan that was put in place in Alachua County Sept. 18. The plan would help bridge the county’s achievement gap between white and black students, which is the widest gap in Florida.
Pass the box of DeSantis?
Out of about 29,500 students in Alachua County, 44 percent are white, 34 percent are African American, 10 percent are Hispanic and 5 percent are Asian. However, 81 percent of the county’s teachers are white, 11 percent as black and 6 percent as Hispanic, according to the equity plan. Goals of the plan include the reduction of the achievement gap between black and white students on
A UF alumnus is raising funds to offer his ride-sharing app on Android devices by selling election-themed cereal boxes, pg. 3
It’s electric!
Gainesville bought a new fleet of electric cars, pg. 4
standardized tests, an increase in graduation rates of black students and greater involvement of black students in advanced courses. About 20 parents, teachers and school staff were frustrated that the school board put the plan in place without addressing the concerns of the community, such as more representation for black students, a lack of parental involvement and little men-
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SEE EQUITY, PAGE 4