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 what’s going on in the schools.
Arts and culture continues to be promoted in the Monroe County school curriculum and district overall.
Woltanski said, “We have a great partnership with many community organizations. The Art Council of the Florida Keys puts out grants that people can apply for to get artists into the schools. And this past week or two, the schools have really benefitted from that. The South Florida Symphony comes down and plays like a full symphony orchestra designed for kids in each of the regions of the Keys. And so this year the theme was the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So it was very patriotic. They have a slideshow that they show, and they explain what the music means. And for many kids, it’s the first time. And for some kids, it’s going to be the only time that they see a real symphony. And it’s very exciting for these kids to get in there. The leaders of it also teach kids like theater etiquette and when to clap and how not to talk and what’s appropriate, what’s not and it’s just really a great program for all aspects of the kids lives. But they come home real excited from it. So we’re grateful to have that. That was something that Mrs. Axford brought in. She was a board member of the Council of the Arts, and that was something that she brought in the symphony, and then was able to expand it to the Upper Keys and the Middle Keys as well. As you can imagine, it’s logistically, really difficult to get a whole symphony to a school performance. That’s a lot of instruments to move around. And when they go to Key West, they have to find places for everyone to stay. But it’s really a tremendous performance. And if you know an elementary school kid, you can ask them about it, because I think they all have something to say. We have four elementary schools up here in the Upper Keys, and it would be logistically, very difficult to get this student population of all four elementary schools to Miami to see it. So we’re grateful that they bring it to us.”
Stanley Switlik School presented the Adams Family recently.
Woltanski said, “They had a fantastic stage, and the chorus was zombies, yes, and they were great. The makeup and costumes were fantastic. And the dancing was great, in part because it was all zombie dancing. It was fantastic. It’s one of the few performances that I’ve seen where the chorus pretty much steals the show. But the leads, the singing was fantastic. There’s so much talent there. And these were fourth and fifth graders and it was shocking afterwards. And, oh, and Cousin It, he entertained everyone by unicycling all around the auditorium during the intermission. So there’s multiple talents there.”
The schools are on spring break right now.
Woltanski said, “It’s a really exciting time. I do want to put a shout out to everyone who might still be waiting in an airport because they missed a connection, because there’s storms across the country. I’m hearing that from a lot of people, people who are trying to get somewhere for spring break, I’m wishing them safe travels and that they ultimately get to their destination. But yes, spring break is a great time to recharge and honestly, you don’t need to do heavy academics, but reading together is a great idea. And then we get into the last quarter, which tends to just fly. Summer will be here before we know it, graduations and all of that. This is the most exciting time of the year. After you get through the testing.”
What’s going on with Founders Park in Islamorada?
Woltanski said, “I did watch the council meeting and I was present at the school board discussion, and for about 25 years, there has been an interlocal agreement between the village and Coral Shores. There’s not enough room back in the backyard of Coral Shores to have both a track and a baseball field. So that has been an agreement since, really the park began, and we’re looking to make improvements, and those improvements are going to cost, because it’ll include the field and adding a press box and bathrooms, those improvements are going to cost around $6 million and so it’s an unusual situation for the school board to be in, to be building something for $6 million on property that we don’t own. So we want to make sure that we do it right and the village council did send over a re-make of the original use agreement that we’ve all been using for 25 years. And we believe that when that came to us, that that was the start of a negotiation process, and so we made edits. Our lawyer took those edits back. Our superintendent and the village manager, Ron Saunders and their attorney, spent time negotiating changes to what our amendments were, and we honestly believed that we were really close to an agreement of something that would satisfy both sides, both the people providing the money and the people providing the land, and it wasn’t presented to the village council in that way. It was that we wanted to make change. We really thought it was part of the negotiation process, so we’re willing to continue that process. We worked well with the village for a very long time. We by no means meant to insult them as our landlord. That was not the agreement. We thought the changes that we made and then brought back through negotiation, we thought we were very close to an agreement at that point. We had been led to believe we were close to an agreement, that the attorney and the village manager and our superintendent and attorney had negotiated a middle ground that we only had a few things left to talk about. So we were surprised when the village council said no, they were going to go back to the original agreement and dismiss all the negotiations that had happened in that way. But this is something I think can get straightened out. It’s just difference in the way the two groups govern, I suppose. We take our role of governance very seriously, but we don’t make any individual decisions on our board. The board makes a decision, directs our attorney or our superintendent to carry out our wishes to the best of their ability, and that’s what we thought was happening. So we’ll be able to clear that up. We’re not warring factions. We’re people who want the same thing, what’s best for kids.”
For more information on the schools, click here: https://www.keysschools.com/