Education Archive

Christy Gray once had a dream to be in the Olympics. Teaching turned out to be her second option.

Santa Rosa Education Foundation has announced the three finalists selected from five semifinalists for Santa Rosa Teacher of the Year. Congratulations to Christal Bennett, Central School, Rhonda Waters, Milton High, and Angela Fulton, Woodlawn Beach Middle.

Following a collaborative effort by the district’s Facility Names Committee, comprised of two assistant superintendents, a director, a principal, a parent, and a community member, Santa Rosa County is thrilled to announce the official name for its newest high school: Soundside High School. The naming process was initiated in December. The committee proposed three potential names: Bayshore High, Midway High, and Soundside High. To determine the final choice, public school-enrolled families from all Santa Rosa south end school sites were invited to participate in a vote.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States in 2020, school districts across the country, who were still in their spring semesters, had to transition millions of students to online classes to finish out the school year. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 77% of public schools and 73 percent of private schools reported moving some or all classes to online distance-learning formats in early 2020.

Santa Rosa County District Schools is again recruiting and accepting applications for School Guardian. The Chris Hixon, Coach Aaron Feis, and Coach Scott Beigel Guardian Program was established in 2018 through the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act. In its initial report, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission found that having guardians in schools is the best way to ensure highly trained personnel are in place to respond immediately in the event of a school shooting.

Learning English can be difficult. According to Oxford Royale Academy, a summer school associated with Oxford University in England, the language can be hard to master due to its complex grammar rules, exceptions to those rules, variations in pronunciation, the order of words in a sentence, emphasis on certain words to change sentence meaning and homophones (words that sound the same but have different meanings), just to name a few.  

Her nameplate says chaos coordinator. Her real name is Tami McConnell.

And for the second time in her education career, McConnell is Navarre High’s teacher of the year.

The beginning of 2024 will also mark a new beginning at Gulf Breeze High School. Longtime principal Danny Brothers will step down, making way for Sarah Barker, currently the assistant principal, to take over.

In October, East Bay K-8’s principal called a meeting of teachers and faculty in the main hub of the school. The meeting was to announce the school’s teacher of the year for the 2023-2024 school year.

One teacher in attendance, Ariel Gonzalez, had only been teaching for five years and didn’t anticipate her name would be said. And then it was.

The University of West Florida will reach a significant milestone, officially surpassing 100,000 graduates during the University’s Fall 2023 Commencement on Saturday, Dec. 9, at the Pensacola Bay Center. Since its first commencement ceremony in 1968, the University has conferred more than 121,000 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees.