John Dick, Monroe County School Board member, joined Good Morning Keys this morning on KeysTalk 96.9/102.7FM to talk about our schools.
The Soldier Ride is an incredibly poignant event for everyone, but especially for veterans like Dick.
He said, “It’s a very big deal for the veterans down here, and it’s a big deal for our school district. I spoke to them in Marathon when they came to the firehouse here. But you know, the students at Coral Shores all come out, the students from PKS across the street. They come out and meet them where they spend time in the parking lot over at Coral Shores High School and the interaction with the students and the questions and the camaraderie between the high school students and them, it’s really, really, very impressive. I think our country was kind of going away from patriotism a little bit and I think it’s going to have a big revival now of patriotism. When grew up and I grew up in New York City and I still to this day, can remember we had to learn In Flanders Fields. We had to learn that poem, and we had to memorize that. That’s the way it was back then. Patriotism was very strong, and I have a feeling it’s coming back, because those students down here in Marathon lined the street because the wounded warriors from down here in Marathon, they load up and get on the bikes at the firehouse, and then they go down like it’s about half of Marathon town left that they go through, then they go over the Seven Mile Bridge, and then they recoup back into the busses at the other side at Veterans Park. But when they go by the area where Stanley Switlik, you see all these students waving these flags, lined the street for them, and it’s just it’s very impressive. It’s impressive to the wounded warriors, but it’s a great feeling for the students and the staff of our schools. They really, really enjoy it. I see patriotism coming back around. I mean, we never lost it down here in Monroe County. I’ve always said that this has been a very pro veterans community, but I think it’s going to resurgence in the United States now. We do get veterans into the schools to speak to students and whenever some of the classes, maybe in social studies, history classes, they want to talk to veterans. I’ve been in schools and when I was commander of post, I’ve sent different veterans to different schools for speaking. So it’s really important to get us in there. In Monroe County, every year, the three high schools send students to the different service branches. So we do have a strong presence here. So we’re very happy with that. I’m very happy to see the country going in this direction, and it makes me feel good. Maybe pretty soon, we’ll ask the students to memorize In Flanders Fields.”
Superintendent Theresa Axford will be retiring and a search for a new superintendent is underway.
Dick said, “We are in the beginnings of what we, as the board members, are going through now, at this point, trying to determine exactly what are the qualifications we’re going to ask for. It’s a matter of what degrees and what kind of service has the person done before. Do you want to see administration in the high school or grammar school, or do you want district office workers? These are the type of things we’ll ask. As far as a degree, masters? Do you need a doctorate? These are things that will come forward and we’ll make our decisions. How many years of experience do we want? Do we want Florida experience? Because you know one thing about Florida, having experience in the state that you’re in, every state runs the finances very differently, and it’s very complicated. So it is good to have somebody from your state that has that experience with that, but we’ll decide what we want, and then we’ll advertise it, and we’ll see what we come up with. The salary that we’ll be able to put out, and then the cost of living, it’s going to be a real tough problem.”
Affordable housing for the school district is also an issue.
Dick said, “It just shows you the different aspects of what we have to deal with as a school board member, you think you want to go in and just look about education, and let’s get this type of curriculum in. We spend time on housing, we spend time on COVID, we spend time on a lot of other issues that are not directly related into the classroom. Then, of course, school safety is such a big thing, securing our perimeters and having safety, school resource officers and all that. So being a school board member and being a superintendent in the school district is a very, very multitask position.”
The schools will be closed on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the next school board meeting will be on January 28th.
Dick said it will be at “Marathon High School, and the agenda for that will come out actually the day after the Martin Luther King Day. So we’ll see what that is, and I know they’ll be part of whatever we’re doing for the superintendent search. There’ll be something on there for that. I’m very proud of this school district. I am very proud of the employees and the students and how much they came out and how much they celebrate what’s going on in our veteran community and they greatly, greatly appreciate it. So again, I’m humbled by what I see.”