With graduation looming, officials are hoping efforts to boost high school graduation rates will pay off in the numbers. ...more

May 22, 2008

SEBRING – Broker Chip Boring, of RE/MAX Realty Plus of Sebring, and RE/MAX Realty Plus II of Lake Placid, will sponsor a hot air balloon to benefit the Boys and Girls Clubs of Highlands County's charity event May 30-31. Following last year's successful fundraiser, the second annual "Balloon Glow" will be Friday, May 30, and the "Lift Off Event" will be Saturday, May 31, at the entrance to the Sebring Raceway and Airport. "Young people who attend Boys and Girls Clubs in Florida show higher high school graduation rates and better behavior, resulting in increased lifetime earnings," said Florida Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp. "An investment in our children is an investment in our future. The independent study's results are proof that Florida's Boys and Girls Clubs continue to influence our young people and our economy, both for the better." ...more

May 20, 2008

It has been widely thought that Hillsborough County School Superintendent MaryEllen Elia's contract gives her a hefty bonus for student achievement. She earned a $37,620 bonus this year alone, but look close and you will see it is only partly grounded in student gains. ...more

January 18, 2008

More than 30 Middleton High students walked across a stage to receive a diploma this week, a little early for high school graduation but not from a life-skills class. ...more

January 17, 2008

LAKE PLACID –– Dave Alden remembers his brother-in-law, Wendell, fondly, although he was only a child when his adopted sister married. It was partly because Wendell's life was a success story but more importantly he always made time for Dave. That mentoring of honesty and setting a good example made a lifetime impact. Born in Vermont, Alden retired in 1989 as a project engineer with Kennicott Copper. He and his wife, Marie, traveled the United States and Alaska for two years before the snowbirds decided to find a warm place in Florida to land. While zigzagging across the state, they discovered Lake Placid and fell in love with this town of murals and caladiums. Dave feels that their secret to being married 48 years –– besides luck –– is that they love each other and have the same goals. Marie was the type who wanted to help people and he was brought up the same way. ...more

December 31, 2007

Hillsborough County schools' graduation rate increased nearly 2 percentage points in 2006-07 over the previous school year with a slight improvement in the dropout rate, the state reported Friday. ...more

December 1, 2007

Some Florida school officials have taken offense at a new report from Johns Hopkins University which slammed the state for the high number of high schools it calls "dropout factories," schools where no more than 60 percent of those who start as freshmen complete their senior years and graduate. ...more

November 28, 2007

It started with a high school graduation gift. 'I'd like a banjo,' Wally Meyer told his parents. They, being musicians themselves, were quite open to this idea. ...more

October 20, 2007

SEBRING –– Santos Guadalupe De La Rosa likes to say that farm work is his college education. If that's so, then his education started when he was 7 years old and continues until today as a farm worker specialist for the Florida Non-Profit Housing in Sebring. De La Rosa's family members were all migrant workers. His parents, aunts, grandfather –– the whole clan –– traveled together like gypsies to wherever there was something ready to pick. At age 5, De La Rosa was babysat by his 9 - and 11-year-old sisters. By the time he was 7, he was working alongside his family in the field and traveling the crop circuit. The family was based in the Texas border town of Mercedes, in the Rio Grande Valley. ...more

October 1, 2007