Dr. Sue Woltanski, district five board member for the Monroe County School District, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the schools.
A contract signing for students in Take Stock in Children is happening this week.
Woltanski said, “It’s contract signing for the middle schoolers this week. They’re taking in 84 new students in middle school, there will be 31 in the Lower Keys, around 30 up here in the Upper Keys, and around 25 in Marathon. They will have events tonight at Horace O’Brien school, tomorrow night at Key Largo school, and Wednesday in Marathon. These kids sign a contract where they promise that they’re going to earn A’s, B’s and C’s, have good attendance and behavior, stay crime and drug free and meet with a mentor weekly. If they successfully complete that, they get access to a Florida prepaid tuition scholarship, which covers four years at a public university, and some also get dorm scholarships. It’s one of the most, if not the most, I think it’s the most successful Take Stock program in Florida. The kids go on to just do amazing things. One of the things that’s essential to that program is having mentors. They are always looking for mentors, someone who wants to come in during the school year and meet once a week, talk to kids about their classes and what direction and how things are going. It’s super important to those kids. People end up with tremendous relationships, and it helps both. This next Sunday at the artisan market in Key West, Take Stock will be the featured nonprofit. So if you’re around there, you can check in. They’re constantly recruiting mentors, and you can learn more about the program directly from them. The mentors, plus the Take Stock graduates, often come back. We have several teachers in the district that were Take Stock grads and their younger siblings are in Take Stock now. It’s real community builder.”
A student at Coral Shores High School is a National Merit semifinalist.
Woltanski said, “Last year he was our Florida State scholar for the district. He’s a tremendous academic kid. His name is Nathaniel Sugarman. He and his family have really embraced the public schools down here. Nathaniel went to PKS, and he is what I would call a math whiz. By the time he was in seventh grade, he had completed all the math that he could do in at PKS, and so he started traveling across the street to Coral Shores, where he took Algebra II and pre calculus, and then he took calculus and his freshman and sophomore year and then he ran out of math to take. We all worked with the family. His family was really the impetus to get dual enrollment through the University of Florida available to our students so they can do online courses, dual enrollment with the University of Florida, and it’s such a great opportunity for anyone who wants to go to the University of Florida to try out a class, even if it’s online, to show the university what you can do. Nathaniel’s family, they were instrumental in bringing that to the district, because he needed more math classes to take. The great part of the story is that last weekend, he was crowned homecoming king, and apparently the math department went wild. They haven’t had a stellar math student crowned homecoming king in a while, and they were due and Nathaniel is a great kid. He’s an athlete and just all around good kid. So it was a wonderful story out of Coral Shores.”
To be a National Merit semifinalist is an honor that is awarded to the less than 1% of high school seniors nationwide.
Woltanski said, “I’m going to give a shout out to his parents, because sometimes when you have this kind of really academic savant kind of child, you want to push them faster and early graduate them and move them out, but he’s in marine science honors, scuba diving and doing research now at the high school. He’s really making the most of his high school experience and I think it’ll serve him well in the long run.”
The Conch 5 studios team were in New York City to watch as films from three of their members were featured as finalists in the All American High School Film Festival.
Woltanski said, “I had the pleasure of going to PKS this week and seeing their new green room because they are just weeks away from having the television studio at PKS, and it will have the same setup as the studio that the high school has. So morning announcements at PKS just got a little bit better. The kids will be taking that over soon. Those are incredible opportunities for kids to see behind the scenes about how the world works.”
Superintendent Ed Tierney is talking to students as well as groups in the district.
Woltanski said, “He’s a rotary speaker for the Upper Keys Rotary tomorrow, he’s going to try to make it through all of them. We’re coming up on 100 days. He said he was a going to after 100 days, give his vision of the district. He’s really been doing the job and getting out into all the schools and into classrooms and learning how things are going. I was at PKS with him, and his comment was that the paraprofessionals, these are the teaching assistants in the school, he said they are the most professional paraprofessionals he had ever seen. When you walk in a room, you cannot tell the difference between the teacher and the paraprofessional, and I’m sure that is a huge part of the success they have at PKS. I think that all levels of excellence is how you get excellence.”