The district offers close to 30 different high school career academy programs!

Important Dates

Attend the STEM Conference

Message from the Superintendent

Our FCAT testing window has closed for yet another school year. Now we await FCAT results which should be received in a month or so with the school grades expected to be released in late June. I am very proud of our students for working so hard to prepare for the FCAT and I very much appreciate the support they were given by our cadre of wonderful teachers! With FCAT, it is a total team effort with parents and guardians also encouraging their children to do their best. This month, you are cordially invited to join us as we conduct a STEM conference on Saturday, May 19th. As you know, STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math; that will be our focus as we discuss ways in which we can engage our students in STEM activities today that will help them in the real world of tomorrow. We have a full agenda which will include major presentations and more than 30 break-out sessions. It will be an exciting day! To learn more about our STEM conference and to register, just go to the home page of our district website at www.collierschools.com. Finally, I want you to know we are going through a difficult time right now, facing spending reductions that are impacting our people. For the most part, in previous years we were able to protect staff, but with salaries and benefits accounting for 77% of our operating budget, this next round of cut recommendations are impacting employee positions. You should know that we have reduced spending by more than $100 million since the 2007-2008 school year, but for the coming year we need to trim at least another $10 million from our budget. When reductions touch people – they hurt – for all of us. You will be learning more about our financial situation in the coming weeks. However, I wanted to make certain that you were aware of the trying times we are all dealing with here in the district. Thank you for your continued support. ~ Dr. Kamela Patton

Message from the School Board Chair

This month, we honored our Golden Apple Teachers and our District Teachers of the Year at a very impressive recognition ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. This ceremony was organized by The Education Foundation of Collier County and it recognized all of our teachers through those selected this year. We truly have an outstanding corps of teachers here in Collier County. We also held a graduation for those who earned their General Education Diploma (GED). We are very proud of all of our graduates. This month also included a very important part of the school year, the FCAT test was administered to our students. This test has an effect on our students as well as the District as a whole. Individual results, as well as District results, will affect what we do next year. We have about five weeks left until graduation. Commencement is very important in the life of our school district and the lives of our graduates. Parents, don’t allow your seniors to slack off over these final five weeks. If you do, the results could be disastrous. After thirteen years of hard work all of our seniors deserve to graduate. ~ Roy M. Terry

Feedback Welcome

FIRST BOOK-COLLIER COUNTY gives a steady stream of new, age-appropriate books to children living in poverty in our community. These books are selected by two Book Distribution Chairs, both professional educators, to support and reinforce the curriculum in the children’s classrooms. Sometimes the books selected are the very same books the children are reading–and loving–during their school days. This way, their reading and learning skills are reinforced as they read the books again and again at home, often sharing the stories with their sisters, brothers, and parents. First Book-Collier County has been able to provide 300,000 new books to disadvantaged children in our community over the past seven years.