Photo of Sugarloaf Principal Trevor Tyler and SRO Deputy Tim Tedesco, with Board Chair John Dick and Superintendent Ed Tierney, as they were awarded GEMS for their bravery at a recent neighborhood house fire.
At Tuesday evening’s School Board Meeting, board members honored two of the district’s own, who saved three people and a dog from a house fire. Sugarloaf School’s Principal Trevor Tyler and School Resource Officer Deputy Tim Tedesco noticed smoke coming from a house near the school. After calling 911, they rushed to the house to help. Tyler ran into the house, evacuating two young people and a dog from the building; with smoke increasing, Tedesco entered the building to check for others, finding one adult inside whom he brought to safety before the arrival of first responders. They received recognition and honor with the award of a District GEM Award (Great Educational Moments). See the GEM awards here.
The board also heard reports on Kindergarten readiness, the District’s Accelerated Math program, an update from the Superintendent and voted to move forward with the agreement between the Village of Islamorada and the School District for the development of the Founder’s Park baseball field.
Jennifer Walker, who heads up the District’s VPK and Headstart programs, spoke to board members about how her programs reach out to students and parents to make sure they are prepared to move on to Kindergarten. This involves efforts to bring new families with school aged children into Monroe County Schools, assessing the readiness of students into Kindergarten as well as helping children and families to prepare for the year ahead. To find out more about the programs offered, contact Jennifer Walker at jennifer.walker@keysschools.com.
District Math Director Jason Small spoke to the board about the District’s Accelerated Math Program in grades 3 – 8 and efforts to make sure math classes work for all students. He said the district recognizes that students have a variety of proficiencies and move at different paces with their math skills. In designing the current Accelerated Math program, they wanted to make sure a student can work at their own pace to ensure success. To that end, schools have evaluated all of their students and where they are with their math skills. They have designed a variety of options for how to work with students: offering classrooms with different proficiency groups or offering multiple classes at different levels of proficiency. This makes sure that no one gets left behind; they all succeed at their own pace. If you want to know more about the Accelerated Math program and how it works, email him at jason.small@keysschools.com.
Superintendent Edward Tierney gave his report to the board and spoke about his “One Team, One Goal: Student Success” program. The program, which will continue through April 3rd, is designed to provide direct support to schools and teachers. Administration employees have spent a total of 1,120 hours visiting schools throughout the Keys and offering their skills, time and energy to doing whatever the schools need to help them operate smoothly. The Superintendent said this effort has also given the administrators and office personnel a better understanding of the difficult job that teachers do every day.
“I want to thank all of those who participated in this program for your hard work and dedication,” he said. He reiterated that everyone gave it their all while still doing their regular jobs. “I was truly impressed with how well this went and how much everyone put into it,” he said.
The board then moved into action Items on the agenda with just one item listed: moving forward with the process of developing a license agreement with the Village of Islamorada to use Founder’s Park as the location for a baseball complex for Coral Shores High School. The complex would also be used by the Village for recreational purposes when not in use for baseball.
After extensive discussion, board members voted to approve the proposed agreement with amendments. That approved agreement will now move back to the Village of Islamorada for their input and/or approval.
**Note: All board meeting agendas are published on the District website and meetings are announced ahead of time in Public Notices published locally and on the District’s website. The meetings are presented live at the time of the meetings as well as video taped so the public can watch them at any time. Members of the public are invited to speak to the board at every meeting during the Citizen Input portion of the meeting.
Please contact me for further information or if you have questions.
Amber Archer Acevedo
Deputy Superintendent
Monroe County School District
amber.acevedo@keysschools.com
305-293-1400 ext. 53319 or 305-360-2355
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