- November 17, 2024
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Local business leaders and community members fiddled with dozens of iPads handed out by Flagler Schools staff at the district’s Classrooms to Careers symposium Thursday, Jan. 15, but the iPads — models that are usually loaned out to district students for classes — were just a few of the high-tech gadgets on display at the event.
Students in the district’s new career-oriented flagship programs showed off their projects and creations for local business figures, displaying miniature robots, underwater measuring tools, electrical pianos that run off water, and more, some of them hoping to catch the eye of a potential mentor, or, perhaps, a future boss supervisor.
That’s the kind of connection the flagship programs are designed to promote.
“The spirit of these flagships programs is to bring that connection to careers and to the classroom,” Superintendent Jacob Oliva said in an address at the beginning of the symposium. “Being able to be exposed and have a taste of what that feels like is something that’s very powerful.”
Garry Lubi, of the Flagler County Chamber of Commerce, said he hoped the flagships were the beginning of a relationship.
“When you take a look at some of the things that we’re working on, one is that we have an aggressive economic development plan here in the county and also in our cities as well,” he said. “And what we’re trying to do now is make sure we have synergy in the business community, but also in the educational community.”
As community and business leaders filed out of the board room after opening speeches, they were greeted with dozens of presentation tables where students from various schools’ flagship programs displayed projects. The demonstrations stretched throughout all three floors of the building.
At a table for Belle Terre Elementary, 7-year-old Ava Muldoon, a first-grader, showed off her “water piano,” a series of jars filled with water and hooked to electrical wires that connected to a computer program. She placed one hand in one of the jars and another on a tinfoil ground, closing a circuit, and a note played through the computer’s speakers. Each jar created a different tone.
“We basically just talked about what elements conduct electricity,” said Jill Espinosa, her teacher and leader of the school’s Inventors Club. “It was really hands-on, just playing with things and letting them make mistakes. They learn to work without us telling them.”
At a Matanzas High School table, culinary arts students showed off sweeter creations, putting the icing on dozens of cupcakes handed out to attendees.
Gina Evans, 17 and a senior, said she’s already been accepted to Johnson and Wales for culinary management.
“When I was little, my mom would always cook in the kitchen, and I would watch, and I would really want to cook with her.” She took home economics courses in middle school and then entered the culinary arts program at Matanzas.
Her teacher, Lisa Kittrell, said the students have been serving food at sports banquets and other events — in one instance, serving about 500 people — and have created a restaurant called The Black Pearl at the school, cooking and serving special meals for teachers once a week. Kittrell has two advanced classes of about 50 students each, plus five beginner classes of about 30 students each.
Other programs are being invigorated by community support.
At Rymfire Elementary, coordination between the Education Foundation and Florida Hospital Flagler has led the hospital to agree to donate old medical equipment like X-ray machines to the school, where children can be trained to use it.
Through a partnership with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, aerospace students can take classes at the university, learning how to pilot drones.
Oliva hoped the symposium would be the first of many. Lubi suggested it marked the beginning of a new business-education partnership.
“Today really marks the first step in building an even stronger partnership here in our community,” he said. “This is not something that’s going on statewide, or even nationally or regionally. This is something that’s going on in Flagler County.”
