A Gainesville mother was arrested after her child had 69 unexcused school absences and nine tardies during the 2021-2022 school year. Forty-two of the absences occurred from August to April of 2021, according to a truancy affidavit from Alachua County Public Schools.
Terwilliger is Alachua County’s first and only public school to offer dual language immersion as a magnet program, with that language being Spanish. The program is in its second year, with its first class of students starting first grade.
Parker Siegel, 19, was charged with sexual assault of a person between the ages of 12 and 18. The woman was 17, according to court records. Siegel previously pleaded not guilty.
Marty Jourard, a musician raised in Gainesville, lived in the city during some definitive times. Between the Civil Rights Movement, Brown v. The Board of Education and the Vietnam War, Gainesville was not necessarily a peaceful place in the 1960s and 1970s. It was a place of civil unrest — protests, beatings and riots, but not entirely because of the hippies.
Since 2011, 19 licensed abortion clinics have closed in Florida. Three were in the year following the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Increased clinic closures in Florida echo a national trend.
A school administrator emailed the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office about a bomb threat made at Buchholz High School, according to an ACSO press release. ACSO was then made aware of another bomb threat at Kanapaha Middle School.
Substance use is common at EDM events, which are popular among college students. While universities across Florida have established Narcan distribution programs to provide students with free and easy access to the vital drug safety resource, UF has not.
The City Commission voted 4-3 Thursday to reinstate the open-container alcohol ordinance, which prohibits public consumption of alcoholic beverages. In addition to the first ordinance, which will bring back open container restrictions prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the City Commission voted 6-1 to create an entertainment district for downtown Gainesville.
James Link, Alachua County stormwater engineer, gave a stormwater update to the Alachua County Commission Tuesday afternoon on the effects of pump installations and future stormwater management projects. It’s been almost two years since the last stormwater update of this kind, Link said.
A Trenton man stole an excavator and crashed it into several different properties, including the Walmart on Southwest 42nd Street, according to a police report. Nobody was injured.
Michelle Castronover wasn’t keen on owning chickens. But when her husband and daughter asked to build a coop as a “COVID project,” the 49-year-old Shell Elementary teacher agreed. Three years later, the Castronovers own 10 chickens — the maximum allowed to residents by Gainesville’s Fowl, Chickens or Livestock Code — and share their eggs with the neighborhood through the “fresh eggs” box standing on the edge of their front lawn, which they restock regularly with six- and nine-egg-sized boxes. The coop is just one of the family’s backyard sustainability projects, along with a greenhouse and butterfly garden.
Teachers across Alachua County Public Schools and throughout the country spend from hundreds to thousands of dollars each year buying school supplies, class decorations, cleaning supplies and snacks for their students — most of which can’t be purchased using district-allocated supply funds. Among the ACPS teachers who talked to The Alligator, the average amount spent out-of-pocket was between $1,460 and $2,500, with the lowest estimate being $100 and the highest being $10,000.
A few weeks into the Fall semester, countless UF students are getting sick with various viruses, including the common cold and the latest COVID-19 strain, resulting in an outbreak of what has been dubbed as the 'Gainesville Plague.'
Only a 10-minute drive from UF lies one of Gainesville’s hidden gems: the historic bed-and-breakfast district. With a rich history and eclectic aesthetics, these inns have provided a unique travel experience to Gainesville visitors for 32 years. Ghosts, hippies, Tom Petty and some members of his first band, Mudcrutch, have inhabited these inns long before they became temporary homes to travelers passing through.
The Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments for a case that will determine the fate of abortion rights in the state Friday morning.
Emery Gainey will take over the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office beginning Oct. 2, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ press release Thursday.
Alachua eSchool has lost seven of its original 13 teachers, leaving it with only six full-time instructors, according to the school directory.
The Humane Society of North Central Florida manages 250 fosterable animals, but on the morning of Aug. 30, not one could be found at the shelter. The Humane Society and other Alachua animal shelters began efforts late last week to find foster homes for their animals to wait out Hurricane Idalia. The storm made landfall in Florida the morning of Aug. 30 but spared much of Gainesville.
The GEZ Family Learning Center is a new preschool center founded by the local nonprofit Gainesville for All, known as GNV4ALL, which seeks to address racial and economic inequities in the community. The center opened its doors to Alachua County families Aug. 10 and is located on the Metcalfe Elementary School campus. Roughly 20 students ranging from 6 weeks old to 4 years old currently take advantage of the resource, said Schuran Cartwright the assistant director for the center.
As Florida’s Big Bend communities recover from the devastating impacts of Hurricane Idalia, the Alachua County community is grateful to not have met the storm's eye. Alachua County suffered minor damages. Several trees and power lines came down across Gainesville, and some roadways were blocked.
Solutions by The State News
