Education

A Fort Myers eleventh grader was awarded first place in the U.S. District Court essay contest. Noah Moon described his experience founding a nonprofit organization that brings youth together through sports. As president of Athletes Activating Champions for Empowerment (AACE), Moon uses his love for sports to mentor those around him and provide a supportive space for kids from all backgrounds.

Laurel Blackburn is named Teacher of the Year for Lee County and she talks about teaching what some consider a scary subject: Math.

This year’s Dunbar High School celebration marked the 98th anniversary of the original building opening. The construction of Dunbar high school was a landmark accomplishment for the black community.

Newly elected Collier County Public Schools chair Stephanie Lucarelli discusses challenges met and unmet for the system.

3 teachers were suspended without pay or benefits for comments made regarding the murder of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. That is one of the issues facing Southwest Florida public schools.

Despite being one of the poorest counties in the state, The Glades County School District did the unthinkable and earned an “A-Rating” from the Florida Department of Education.

Personal connections, aggressive lobbying and hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions fueled the rapid rise of an obscure school bus camera vendor, BusPatrol, which quickly became a major player in a niche industry that didn’t exist in Florida until last year. That success represented a remarkable turnaround for a company with a troubled history of allegations that it values revenue over public safety and opportunity over ethics. BusPatrol’s reversal in fortunes, already evident in other states, echoes the comeback of Florida state Rep. Vicki Lopez, once a down-and-out Lee County commissioner, with whom BusPatrol is inextricably linked.

Florida SouthWestern State College has been granted initial accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission, effective Thursday, Nov. 6.

The Lee County School District hosted a series of town hall meetings with all board members last year. This year, the district has renamed the events “Conversations That Count,” with one meeting scheduled each month, each featuring a different board member.

To help school overcrowding in East Lee County, the Lee County School District is planning to build two new schools, one in Alva and one in Lehigh Acres. Public naming surveys are open for both schools.

Quiet, cool and peaceful — that's not how many students usually describe their big yellow school-buses. But in rural Glades County, students have changed their opinions. Until the 2023-24 school year, Glades County’s school buses were entirely diesel. And the fleet was aging.

A federal judge last week approved ending a Hendry County school-desegregation lawsuit that started in 1970, after the U.S. Department of Justice and the district agreed that “vestiges of the prior de jure segregation” had been eliminated.