Ed Tierney, superintendent for Monroe County School District, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about our schools.
A recent financial audit for the district came out quite well.
Tierney said, “We’re going to bring the results of our audit to the board next week at our board meeting, and it’s a clean annual, comprehensive financial report from the auditors with no material weaknesses or significant matters. That’s the finances from the district. They do one restricted fund per year, and the fund they chose this year was food service. I appreciate the work that everybody does to go into having a clean audit our finance department and everyone involved. I’m just proud to be in an organization that takes this so seriously. I speak to our board members at least twice a week, each one of them, and the conversation regularly revolves around increasing student achievement, of course, and also being good stewards of taxpayer dollars. So it’s nice to be part of an organization that just kind of holds that taxpayer investment with such reverence, and we’re proud of the audit that we’re going to bring to the board next week.”
The board meeting will be at Coral Shores High School on Tuesday, December 9 at 5 p.m.
Tierney said, “We’re going to do some reports on some of the good things that are happening, how we’re supporting employees throughout, understanding what their rights are and their benefits. Then Key Largo school is a demonstration school, and we’ll honor them, as well as highlighting some high performing students in the Upper Keys. So it should be a nice meeting to close out this calendar year.”
What is the AVID Center Corporation?
Tierney said, “It’s a support class for students, kind of a methodology designed to help them with study skills and organizations. So I was in schools yesterday in Key West, and I sat with students who had their binders and kind of showed me with some pride how organized they were with their note taking, with their putting their quizzes, test notes on a matter that they could review them in the evenings and come in be that much more prepared. So it’s about support and help with study skills and organization. I’ve used it my previous county, and we use it very effectively here. So very pleased to bring that renewal back and continue to partner with AVID that’s just so helpful for students and teachers, really.”
Testing is going on in the schools right now.
Tierney said, “We have a lot of schools testing right now. I saw some yesterday when I was in schools, and this is an opportunity for students to show what they’ve learned first semester and also practice their test taking skills. This is an opportunity for schools to practice as well, talented principles, and we have many, and testing coordinators will really work on their testing plan now as a dry run to make sure that we’re ready in the spring. So it’s a lot more complicated than just taking the student body divide it by 25 and putting them in classrooms The good principals, and again, we have many, match up teachers and students and size of testing classes based on the needs of the student. And there’s a whole art to that. So the adults are practicing and the kids are practicing, and we’re hoping for a good mid year testing environment, and then good outcomes, and then we’ll be ready to analyze and then act on those outcomes as soon as we get back in January.”
Emerson Fleming, a senior at Marathon High School, has been chosen as Monroe County School District’s presidential scholar in career and technical education.
Tierney said, “I’m pleased to be in the process of forming a strong relationship with Dr G (College of the Florida Keys) and our two organizations, we meet regularly and talk all the time. We’re committed to collectively giving more opportunities to students, and once again, helping improve outcomes for students. I’m proud to partner with him and his organization.”
The plan is to be the number one district in the state.
Tierney said, “This progress monitoring, I’m very curious to see how the data goes, but we’re working on the instruction throughout the system, working hard on early literacy for the young people, so that they are coming in kindergarten ready and learning the phonemic awareness and phonics they need to succeed throughout, as well as a push to improve graduation rates. The team’s working hard, the school based administrators and certainly the teachers. I appreciate all their efforts.”
How is progress going in the district?
Tierney said, “I said early on, that getting that A rating injected a level of energy into this district, and I still feel that every day. So I was in three schools yesterday in Key West. I’m going to visit a couple more today. The team is in the Upper Keys visiting schools there and and I think that the people in the district office and the people in the schools are stepping just a little bit quicker based on that energy. I think the future is very bright, and I’m confident that we’re going to continue to improve outcomes.”