Dr Sue Woltanski, member of the Monroe County School Board, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about our schools.
How is progress monitoring going?
Woltanski said, “Progress monitoring, the kids all took a test at the beginning of the year, and they just took their mid year progress monitoring test. It’s a state assessment that they take, and we’re seeing strong gains across the district, across grade levels and particularly great gains for the English language learners and the special education students in both English language arts and math. I think that reflects the teachers are just doing a great job, and the students are in school and they’re learning, and we’re really happy to see that.”
How was Florida Keys Day in Tallahassee?
Woltanski said, “Every time you go to Tallahassee, there’s pluses and minuses. We’ve been working closely with Representative Mooney, and he was able to get another appropriation in the budget for us to move our administration building into Bruce Hall, which is necessary to build the affordable housing on Trumbo. So that was great news. The other great news is that I ended up on the same flight with Jim Mooney on the way home, and so we saved the planet a little bit by carpooling back from Miami. So that was nice of him to give me a ride. There are budget challenges in education always. I mean, this may be too much in the weeds but there was a dramatic decline in enrollment, unexpected across the board, meaning across the state, whether it was a charter school, a public school, home schoolers, vouchers, there was decline in enrollment, and the state is suggesting that that is due to changes in immigration policies. It could go both ways. Maybe the numbers were very high when we had a lot of immigrants, and now we essentially have no new English language learners this year, and we’re seeing that across the state, there’s fewer English language learners. There’s fewer children identified with special needs, and that’s not just in the public schools, but in the voucher schools as well. But because we’re funded on a per pupil basis, the amount of money everyone thought they were going to get before we did the most recent counts was higher than what it is actually. That’s the problem. We have fewer students. Everyone has fewer students than we thought we were going to have. So there’s this money appropriated to education and the question is, do you give the extra money back to the general revenue, or do you support the systems in place so that when the students come back, or if the students come back, the districts can deal with the unexpected shortfall, really due to no educator’s fault.”
The numbers really have dropped for enrollment.
Woltanski said, “Two years ago, we had 600 new students, and this year, we had zero, so we had put a lot of infrastructure in place that was necessary to help those kids be successful, and now we’re having to, like, pivot mid year. It is going to be challenging. I mean, we’re up to the challenge and we’re fiscally sound, so I don’t foresee this affecting any student program at this point, but it is going to be a challenging budgeting year.”
Superintendent Ed Tierney has a One Team, One Goal program.
Woltanski said, “We’re getting to the last point where high school students who are short by a few points of a test score that is necessary to graduate, they’re getting down to the last chances that they have to do that and get a full diploma. So he has asked everyone with a teaching certificate that works in administration, to get out into the schools and to work with small groups of students, to tutor them, to get them over that finish line. Because that’s really for all of us. That’s the goal, to make high school graduates.”
Weightlifting is something that the Keys schools are excelling in.
Woltanski said, “Girls weightlifting is a winter sport. We’re starting the spring season, which will be boys weightlifting. But over the weekend, Monroe sent four girls to the state championships, and three from Marathon and one from Coral Shores and and they were all very successful. Justice Lee from Marathon was a double champion in both competitions at the state championship, got second place this year, also from Marathon, was Ella Evans, who got third place in her category, and Adelle Bainbridge in Marathon ended up placing in the team competition as well. But the big news from Coral Shores was that Vanessa Gabriel, she’s a four time state qualifier. She’s a senior this year, she’s gone to states every year, and this year she won state championship in both the traditional and the Olympic lifts. It’s the first time a female from Coral Shores has been state champion and I’ll just say a little shout out to Erin Hamilton. That’s the coach. My daughter also weightlifted with her. And Erin is the kind of person who can help kids reach their athletic goals, but also she’s such a great role model for young girls that everyone should wish that their daughter has someone like Erin Hamilton in their lives. In the end Marathon tied for seventh place in the traditional lifts as a team, and they got eighth place in the Olympic lifts. Now Coral Shores, with their one athlete who was a double champion, tied with Marathon for eighth place in the Olympic competition, and got 10th in traditional, so weightlifting, our little schools are doing big things at the state level.”
A school board meeting will be held on the 24th at Coral Shores.
Woltanski said, “We’re getting into spring season. There’s new sports, but also this is a time when drama clubs start putting on their performances, and the first one this spring will be at the end of this month In the Heights at Coral Shores. It’s a Tony Award winning musical written by Lin Manuel Miranda. So that starts on the last weekend of the month, and then watch for similar performances out of Key West and Marathon.”
For more information on the schools, click here: https://www.keysschools.com/