What makes a "Summer Fun Day" fun? A beautiful park, upbeat music, lots of food, kids and adults dedicated to guiding kids into productive lives. Everyone agreed on that at the Summer Fun Day, held on June 17. It was an alcohol free, drug free, and smoke free fun event, held at Highlands Hammock State Park. And the best part, because of the generosity of a few people, it was a free event. So thanks are in order for the following who contributed to the event: First, to Peter Anderson, for the use of the park, to the park rangers who assisted, especially Dorothy Harris who put on a fantastic and challenging scavenger hunt, to the Highlands County School Board who provided lunch, to DJ Mike Davis, to the School Resource Officers and the DARE program for providing their time, talents, snacks and energy to provide lots of extra fun, to Sheriff Benton, to Youth For Christ for providing the love and energy we all needed to keep going in the heat, to the parents who brought their kids, and to the many local businesses who provided free coupons for the kids to reinforce the message of a drug-free lifestyle. So, special thanks to MacDonald's, to Dairy Queen, to Big Al's Italian Ice, to Blockbuster and the grand prizes were pizza coupons donated by Pizza Hut and Pizzano's Pizza. A and W Rood Beer and Subway also made contributions to the day. ...more

June 21, 2008

SEBRING — Area high school students will encounter a new set of classes when they go back to school in August. The set of 12 classes will not be on social studies and math but alcohol prevention. The new program is being funded through a grant totaling more than $432,000 to prevent alcohol abuse among high school students in the Florida Heartland, a top local education official said Wednesday. Frank Gibbs, the executive director of the Heartland Education Consortium based in Lake Placid, said it would be up to the Highlands County School Board to determine how the courses will be inserted into the high school curriculum. ...more

June 11, 2008

AVON PARK — After receiving a preliminary engineering report on the roof concerns at Memorial Elementary School, Highlands County School Board members toured the school's construction site Tuesday for a first-hand look. Prior to the walk-through at the construction site, School Board Member Donna Howerton noted that the report stated there were no immediate concerns, but then the next paragraph indicated there does indeed appear to have been notable issues with improper expansion and contraction mechanisms. Expansion in the metal roof caused cracks a few months ago in cement blocks at the school. Expansion joints were added to the roof system to correct the problem. ...more

June 10, 2008

The School Board of Highlands County recently gave the "go ahead" to begin a secondary education Career Academy. The academy will be for 11th- and 12th-grade students. It will be located on the South Florida Community College campus. Students will spend a half day studying their academic subjects. The remainder of the day they will learn a technical/vocational skill. ...more

June 4, 2008

SEBRING — Were the Fourth Amendment rights of Hill-Gustat Middle School students violated during a Feb. 8 lockdown when 14 officers searched the school for drugs and weapons? Highlands County Sheriff's Office deputies conducted the search with help from officers from Sebring and Avon Park police departments. ...more

May 18, 2008

SEBRING — Two elementary schools will have new assistant principals during the upcoming school year. Melissa Blackman will take over as assistant principal of Woodlawn Elementary and Carla Ball will be assistant principal at Memorial Elementary. ...more

May 7, 2008

SEBRING — Highlands County School Board members said Monday they want to move forward with the Career Academy in some form, even if the first year has a low enrollment. Through the joint venture with South Florida Community College, the Career Academy would allow students to earn a high school diploma and a certificate or associate's degree in a technical discipline such as computer networking, automotive service technology, medical secretary, cosmetology, computer engineering, culinary arts or electronics. ...more

May 5, 2008

SEBRING — April Milicevic planned to drive her daughter each weekday from Lake Placid to Bartow so she could attend a school with an International Baccalaureate diploma program. ...more

February 20, 2008

A steering committee for the International Baccalaureate program has recommended that the school district appoint a program coordinator to shepherd the school district's application should Highlands County School Board opt for the prestigious international high school curriculum. ...more

February 20, 2008

I was sorely disappointed when reading that the Highlands County School Board had backed down after listening to a few speeches by people who were claiming that evolution is a proven scientific fact, and that any other theory had no right to a discussion in science classes! Correct me if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that a scientific "theory" is accepted on the basis of such criteria as the following: 1. It must be observable. 2. It must be reproducible. 3. It must be predictable. If evolution had those three characteristics, perhaps we could accept it as a viable explanation for what we see all around us; the astonishing complexity of life, the world and the universe. ...more

February 17, 2008