Sarasota County Schools News

Atwater Elementary School is ready for students

NORTH PORT – Atwater Elementary, Sarasota County’s newest public school, officially opened its doors to the community on Aug. 4 for a ribbon-cutting ceremony. School board members, district administrators, North Port city officials and some of Atwater’s staff and future students gathered for the event, which included tours of the new school.

Atwater Elementary School Principal Kirk Hutchinson said the North Port community has been very supportive of the new school, which will welcome students for the first time on Monday, Aug. 24, the first day of the 2009-10 school year.

“Members of the community and our future school families helped select the name, the school colors of red, white and blue, and the name of our ‘team,’ the Atwater All-Stars,” said Hutchinson. “Fittingly, the name encompasses everyone connecting with the school — students, parents and guardians, teachers, administrators and support staff. All of our stars will shine at Atwater, as we look forward to a wonderful inaugural year.”

The design for Atwater is a re-use of the plan for Lamarque Elementary in North Port, with variations. The total cost of the project, including land, design, construction, furniture, fixtures and equipment, was $24 million — $7 million less than the original budgeted estimate of $31.2 million. The savings were the result of lower construction costs in the current economy than originally estimated, as well as steps taken by the school district, such as modifications to the original design.

The 124,000-square-foot school was designed by BRPH Architects/Engineers (architects of Lamarque, Cranberry and Tatum Ridge schools) and was built on 35 acres by Jon F. Swift General Contractors. It includes 970 student stations; approximately 650 students are expected to attend the school in 2009-10.

Atwater Elementary is located two blocks south of the intersection of East Price Boulevard and Atwater Drive, at 4701 Huntsville Ave. The school is adjacent to the future Atwater Community Park, which will include youth ball fields. The school district worked closely with Sarasota County Emergency Management to build the school as an enhanced hurricane shelter, designed to withstand wind speeds of 180 miles per hour rather than the standard 130 mph.

Atwater Elementary, like nearby Woodland Middle (opened in August 2008), incorporates “green” features into its construction. These include the use of regional building materials, recycled-content materials and low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) materials; energy-efficient heating and air conditioning; minimized water usage; efficient storm water management and drought-tolerant landscaping. The school district is seeking LEED for Schools Certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) from the U.S. Green Building Council for the facility.

SARASOTA – The School District of Sarasota County will host an Exceptional Student Education Summer Institute for teachers and paraprofessionals who work with students with disabilities. The institute will be held Aug. 3-6 at Sarasota High School and Aug. 10-14 at various locations.

Sessions include “Differentiated Instruction,” which explores teaching methods that take into account the various learning styles of students with disabilities, “Fostering Family/Professional Partnerships,” and “Assistive Technology and Visual Supports for Classroom Communication,” to name a few.

Parents of ESE students with disabilities have been invited to observe; many have already registered. Parents who do not register in advance will be accommodated if possible, on a space-available basis. They should report to the office at Sarasota High School and at the other institute locations, as noted in the schedule.

The institute was developed according to the recommendations of the superintendent’s task force that reviewed current instructional practices regarding severely multiply disabled students. The task force, led by Sonia Figaredo-Alberts, the district’s executive director of Pupil Support Services, was made up of educators and parents of students with disabilities. Figaredo-Alberts presented the findings and recommendations of the task force to the School Board of Sarasota County in June.

More information on the task force and the complete schedule for the institute are available by clicking on the Exceptional Student Education Summer Institute link in the “SCS Essentials” column on the home page of the school district Web site at www.SarasotaCountySchools.net.

SARASOTA - Sarasota County public health and school officials remind parents to get their children’s immunizations updated now. Parents of children who will be entering schools in Sarasota County for the first time must provide the school office with a completed Florida Certification of Immunization form (also known as the blue DH 680). This form, which is available through health care providers, is the official record showing that school-age children have had all the immunizations needed for their grade level.

2009-10 Florida Immunization Requirements for School Attendance:

Kindergarten and Grades 1 – 6

5 DTPs (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis (Whooping Cough) (DTaP) vaccine

4 Polio

2 MMRs (2 Measles, 2 Mumps and 2 Rubella)

3 Hepatitis B

1 Varicella (chicken pox) for Grades 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6

2 Varicella (chicken pox) Kindergarten and Grade 1

Grades 7 – 12

5 DTPs (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis (Whooping Cough)

4 Polio

2 MMRs (2 Measles, 2 Mumps and 2 Rubella)

3 Hepatitis B

1 Tdap (Tetanus Diphtheria) (grade 7)

1 Tdap or Td (grades 8-12)

1 Varicella (chicken pox) for Grades 7-8 students only

“Let’s all have a great start to the school year. Compare your child’s immunization record with the immunization requirements,” said Sarasota County Health Department School Health Supervisor Linda Glover, R.N., M.Ed., Ed.S.

Children entering seventh grade in August must have proof of having received a tetanus/diphtheria booster (Td or Tdap) within the past five years. Parents should also make sure their college-bound teenagers are up-to-date with required and recommended vaccines. If a child needs updated immunizations, officials urge parents to take their children to get them soon to avoid the long lines closer to the start of school. Front office staff members at schools in the Sarasota County School District are returning to work Thursday, July 30.

“Bring your student’s blue DH 680 form to the school as soon after Thursday, July 30 as possible so your child’s first day of school will be a positive experience,” says Linda Glover.

Students who do not have the required immunizations will be sent home from public schools on the first day, August 24. In addition, they will not be able to ride the bus or participate in sports, band or other extracurricular activities until the school has the DH 680 form showing that the shots were received.

The Sarasota County Health Department, through the federally-funded Vaccines for Children (VFC) program, offers free immunizations to children from families who lack health insurance or whose insurance does not pay for immunizations. No appointment is needed. A parent or guardian must be present, and must bring prior shot records.

Sarasota County Health Department

Children’s Immunization Clinic

2200 Ringling Blvd., Sarasota

Monday through Friday

Please call 941-861-2784 for hours.

South County Family Health Center

South County Resource Center (just north of Manatee Community College)

7820 S. Tamiami Trail, #B2 Venice

Monday through Friday

Please call 941-861-3338 for hours.

For more information, parents schould contact their health care provider or the Sarasota County Health Department’s Office of School Health at 941-927-9000, ext. 32101. For a complete shot schedule, parents may visit the Sarasota County School District’s school health Web page at www.sarasota.k12.fl.us/schoolhealth.

PLEASE REPORT TO THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE: Principal of the Year Tom Buchanan and students at Tuttle Elementary

SARASOTA – An elementary school principal who helped lead his students to new heights of academic success and a middle school assistant principal who helps children realize the value of character have received top honors from the Sarasota County School District.

Tom Buchanan, principal of Tuttle Elementary School in Sarasota, was recently named Principal of the Year for the district by Superintendent of Schools Lori White. White recognized Jean Thompson of North Port’s Heron Creek Middle School as Assistant Principal of the Year.

“Tom and Jean are wonderful examples of the caring and dedication of our administrators,” said White. “They both help motivate students at their schools to overcome obstacles so they can do their very best in the classroom and beyond.”

Tuttle Elementary is a Title I school, part of a federal program designed to address the academic needs of economically disadvantaged students. The Title I designation is based on the percentage of students at a school who qualify for free and reduced-cost lunches under the federal School Lunch Program; about 90 percent of Tuttle students qualify. Some 60 percent of Tuttle students qualify for what is known as ESOL services (English for Speakers of Other Languages).

As Tuttle’s principal since 2004, Buchanan has presided over significant student gains in the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, the FCAT. Comparing the school’s 2009 FCAT results with 2004 data reveals a 10 percent increase in the number of students achieving proficiency in FCAT reading, a 25 percent gain in students reaching math proficiency and a 36 percent increase in students attaining writing proficiency.

“I credit these gains to the creative use of resources, focused staff development and a faculty willing to go above and beyond in trying new approaches,” said Buchanan.

The principal works closely with the parents of Tuttle students; in one case he drove a kindergarten student and his mother to a health center to test the boy’s hearing, which was affecting his learning. The boy began receiving services and is now thriving in the classroom.

Under Buchanan, the school established a Helping Hands Fund. Community members donate to the fund, which has helped families pay for medical costs, electric bills and other expenses.

Before coming to Tuttle as principal, Buchanan served as an assistant principal at schools in Palm Beach County and as a school psychologist in Palm Beach, Orange and Sarasota counties.

Jean Thompson was nominated to be the district’s Assistant Principal of the Year by Bill Bolander, the principal of Heron Creek Middle School.

“Jean is an outstanding administrator,” said Bolander. “No assignment is too big for her to tackle and no assignment is too overwhelming to try. She expects the best from students, staff and herself. These qualities have made Jean a role model on our campus.”

To help struggling students at Heron Creek, Thompson guided and supported a special team of teachers who worked closely with students in danger of falling behind. At the beginning of the year only 9 percent of these students were proficient in FCAT math; by the end of the year 50 percent were proficient, an increase of 41 percent. Reading proficiency was up 25 percent, up from 31 percent at the start of the year to 56 percent at the end. Disciplinary problems also were reduced with the group.

She also has been active in the Community of Caring character education program; Heron Creek was the first school in Florida to join the national organization and has been recognized as a model school for the program.

Thompson recently attended the Harvard Summer Institute on the Art of Leadership to further develop her educational leadership skills. Before becoming assistant principal at Heron Creek she served as a site coordinator for curriculum and instruction at the school and as a teacher for Sarasota County Schools and Hillsborough County Schools. She was the Teacher of the Year at Heron Creek in 2006.

Superintendent White has nominated Buchanan and Thompson for Florida’s Principal Achievement Award for Outstanding Leadership and the Outstanding Assistant Principal Achievement Award, respectively. The statewide winners will be announced in the fall.

COOKING WITH CLASS: SCTI Culinary Arts instructor Brian Knecht, left, with students Will Heaton and Jennifer Gallo.

SARASOTA – Chef Brian Knecht, department chair and instructor in the Commercial Foods and Culinary Arts program at the Sarasota County Technical Institute, was honored with a special award earlier this month at the 2009 national convention of the American Culinary Federation.

Knecht was one of 23 chefs to receive the ACF President’s Medallion at the convention, held this year in Orlando, July 11-14. The award, established by the ACF in 1991, recognizes “people who contribute significantly to the culinary profession,” according to the ACF Web site. This year’s honorees include chefs from some of the nation’s top restaurants, country clubs and resorts; dining directors who serve large corporations and organizations; administrators of culinary arts programs at universities and chef-instructors such as Knecht.

A news release issued by the ACF noted that the award was given to Knecht “for his dedication, work ethic, mentoring of young culinarians and vision for the future of our industry.”

As an active member of the local chapter of the American Culinary Federation, known as the ACF Sarasota Bay Chefs Association, Knecht spearheads the ACF Apprenticeship Program in Sarasota County.

“I am thrilled to be among this year’s recipients of the ACF President’s Medallion, said Knecht. “At SCTI and in my work with American Culinary Federation, I am privileged to help pass along the skills of the trade to our young culinarians, so this award is really about these young students and their future in the culinary arts.”

SARASOTA COUNTY – Six more Sarasota County public high school students will receive National Merit Scholarships financed by colleges and universities, according to information released Monday (July 13) by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation in its final release on the 2009 scholarship recipients.

The six students, all from Pine View School in Osprey, are in addition to 11 college-sponsored scholarship winners announced in May and two students who received other types of NMS scholarships, for a total of 19 NMS scholarship winners from the district’s public schools.

More than 1.5 million juniors entered the 2009 NMS competition when they took the 2007 Preliminary SAT/National Qualifying Test. Last fall, some 16,000 semifinalists were named. More than 15,000 of those met the requirements to become finalists; about 8,300 were named scholarship winners. The final national group of NMS scholarship winners includes about 4,800 students who received college-sponsored awards.

Officials from each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from finalists in the 2009 National Merit Scholarship Program who plan to attend their institution. These awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.

In addition to college-sponsored awards, three other types of NMS scholarships are offered — $2,500 scholarships sponsored directly by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, for which all finalists competed; more than 1,000 corporate-sponsored awards; and $2,500 National Achievement Scholarship recipients. The total value of all NMS scholarships announced this year is about $36 million.

Recipients of $2,500 National Achievement Scholarships, including Paul Rattray II of Pine View, were named in April. Winners of $2,500 National Merit Scholarships, including Joshua Achiam of Pine View, were announced in May.

The Pine View students whose college-sponsored National Merit Scholarships were announced Monday are:

Anne Carothers, Florida State University (probable career field: undecided)

Molly Domingo, University of Florida (probable career field: Political Science/Economics)

Adara Robbins, Rice University (probable career field: Medicine)

Kenneth Shafer, Georgia Institute of Technology (probable career field: Engineering)

Steven Taylor, University of Florida (probable career field: Government Service)

Avital Yohann, University of Florida (probable career field: Neuroscience)

The NMS college-sponsored scholarship winners previously announced are:

North Port High School:

Cassie Urmano, Florida State University (probable career field: Computer Science)

Pine View School:

Brian Barnes, University of Miami (probable career field: Biomedical Engineering)

John Bowers, University of Florida (probable career field: Science)

Taylor Coffman, University of Alabama (probable career field: Biochemistry)

Maxwell Froman, University of Central Florida (probable career field: Chemical Research)

Vera Higgs, Washington and Lee University (probable career field: Law)

Caterian Mosti, University of Florida (probable career field: Psychology)

Courtney Schaefer, Florida State University (probable career field: International Relations)

Matthew Schnack, University of Central Florida (probable career field: Engineering)

Riverview High School:

Jessica Oynick, Washington University in St. Louis (probable career field: Healthcare/International Relations)

Sarasota High School:

Grier Ferguson, University of Florida (probable career field: Journalism/Political Science)

SARASOTA COUNTY – The Sarasota County School District has added the popular social-networking site Twitter to its toolkit for providing information to parents, staff and community members.

The district will use Twitter to “tweet” on events, programs and any other timely news. Tweets are necessarily concise because they are limited to 140 characters in length. District tweets will always be accompanied with a link to the district Web site for more information.

"Twitter is one of the most relevant, efficient and easiest ways to stay current with our community on the Web today," said Mina Ajrab, district Web site specialist. "Twitter followers decide whether to receive updates via text messages on their cell phone or by e-mail."

The school district joins other local governments and organizations, including Sarasota County Government, the city of Sarasota, the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, Sarasota Memorial Hospital and the Sarasota Family YMCA, to name a few, which are using Twitter to get news out quickly to “followers,” who elect to get updates from individuals and groups with Twitter accounts.

Users must have a Twitter account of their own to access others. A free Twitter account can be set up at www.twitter.com. The Sarasota County Schools Twitter feed can be found and followed at http://twitter.com/sarasotaschools.

SARASOTA – Seven Sarasota Rotary Clubs have joined forces to help students at Oak Park School enjoy physical activity on the school playground all year long by building a new sun shade over the play area. Oak Park is one of two schools in the Sarasota County School District dedicated exclusively to educating students with disabilities. Students attend the school year-round.

The Rotary Clubs had invested $160,000 in building a state-of-the-art play facility at the school in 2004 as special project to mark the Centennial of Rotary International. The playground provided a much needed activity area that is fully accessible to students with disabilities, but until now, it could not be used during the summer.

Phase II of the project provided a sunshade over half of the playground. Phase III, scheduled to be finished next year, will provide a shade for the other half of the playground. Joe Formella, the president of the Rotary Club of Sarasota, said the Rotary Clubs and a private foundation that has chosen to remain anonymous will invest about $90,000 to complete the sunshade project.

The participating clubs comprise Area 9 of Rotary International District 6960. They are the Rotary Club of Sarasota, the Rotary Club of Sarasota Bay, the Rotary Club of Sarasota Gateway, the Rotary Club of Sarasota Gulfgate, the Rotary Club of Sarasota Keys, the Rotary Club of Sarasota Sunset and the Rotary Club of Sarasota Sunrise.

Gail Maynard, the Assistant District Governor for Area 9, dedicated the new sunshade in a June 30 ceremony at the facility. She said the project represented the combining of the Rotary family with the family of Oak Park.

Oak Park Assistant Principal Phyllis Frederic said the Rotary clubs began raising funds for the project in July, 2008, and started the construction project in January 2009. Formella, Cocozza and Dave Mills construction companies contributed time and labor to the project as well as helping with the funding, she said.

She thanked the Rotarians for the “unbelievable amount of time, money, sweat and tears” the clubs have provided Oak Park over the years. “I can’t tell you what they have done for us,” she said. “We are so grateful for their help.”

The official name of the facility is the Jeff August Memorial Playground. Jeff’s father, Art, is a member of the Rotary club of Sarasota Bay. He has been one of the leaders of the playground project since its inception. He said Jeff was a boy who loved life and found good in everyone, so it is very satisfying to his family for Jeff’s spirit to be memorialized in such a happy place.

Oak Park Principal Dan Parrett said he is very pleased that students will be able to use the playground year-round. “We were locked out before because of the summer heat,” he said. Sometimes the temperature on the equipment would be 100 degrees by nine o’clock in the morning.”

Frederic said the loss of the playground during the summer was a serious interruption of the educational process. “Our students don’t just use the playground for recreation during recess,” she said. “It is used by our occupational and physical therapists for sensory and motor skill development activity every period of the day.

“Having a shade to let us use the playground all year is a tremendous boon to our students and staff. It makes a huge difference in our program. That’s why we’re so excited,” she said.

Parrett said, “The shade will allow the students access to the exercise time they so dearly need. And it’s beautiful.”

School Nurse Connie Toops

SARASOTA - Connie Toops, a nurse at Emma E. Booker Elementary School, has been named School Nurse of the Year by the Florida School Health Association (FSHA).

“Connie was an excellent choice for this award,” said Linda Glover, school health supervisor for the Sarasota County Health Department. “She loves working with children and families and is dedicated to safe and healthy schools and communities.”

As a former college-level nurse educator with 38 years in the healthcare field, Toops researches current trends in school health and is an expert on best practices for implementing nursing care services among school-age children. She serves as a resource to her peers, as well as to other school staff and families. Of special significance is her role in developing a two-day training of all school health room aides, with speakers and interactive learning presentations.

"The health of our students is so important," said Toops. "Among other reasons, it is a big factor in how well they do in school. As school nurses we are partners with parents in ensuring the health of our students. It's a responsibility and a privilege."   

Toops also has been recognized by Sarasota County Government with many awards, including “Performance Recognized as Outstanding” and “Quality Service” awards.