Ana Groover Leads The International Spanish Academy At New Horizons Elementary School

Story by Chris Felker • Photos by Abner Pedraza

In her 22-year educational career, Ana Groover has spent 18 years at New Horizons Elementary School in Wellington. Through that time, she has picked up additional administration duties. However, after missing her time working directly with children, she began this year determined to spend more time with students.

Groover is the International Spanish Academy coordinator at New Horizons. A native of Cuba, she arrived as a 6-year-old in Florida when her parents immigrated to the United States. She was raised in Belle Glade, which is also where she first taught in the 1990s, at Gove Elementary School as a dual-language English teacher who volunteered in the evenings to help adult learners.

Groover earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in elementary education from Nova Southeastern University.

When she started at New Horizons, Groover initially was an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) specialist, teaching science to older elementary school students. She was then given other hats to wear, including ESOL grade chair, testing/placement of English Language Learners (ELLs) and test scheduler.

“Last year, I actually had two administrative jobs and worked very little with children. I’m actually the ESOL coordinator, and that job I’ve had a long time,” Groover said. “Since we became a dual-language magnet school, I am now also the International Spanish Academy magnet coordinator.”

But she kept teaching kids despite the extra work, after gravitating almost completely out of the classroom.

“What I’d done in the past several years was pull groups of children to work with as a tutor almost, for 45 minutes a day — third, fourth and fifth grade. Last year, I wasn’t able to do that,” she said. “There just wasn’t time.”

The other major responsibilities Groover bears keep her a busy professional, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. The labels on those hats have her swimming in acronyms, too many to define, and some that have gone away. She coordinates all ELL testing, plus the state’s Access 2.0 test, and is APRENDA test administrator as well. In addition, she is New Horizons’ administrative liaison for the Educational Data Warehouse (EDW), which holds all student records.

“English Language Learners are the children who, when they get to us from other countries, they’re tested, and then according to the tests they’re placed in a room,” Groover explained. “There’s a plan drawn up so their instruction matches with their growth goals, and then they are reevaluated. I reevaluate them at certain times. There are actually guidelines from the government that we have to follow about how often and when they have to be reevaluated.

The goal is to get them completely proficient in English. The way they determine that, Groover said, is through the battery of tests that she largely administers for the school.

“APRENDA is a test that we give only to the dual-language children, anyone who’s in the Spanish academy, so I also manage that test and everything else to do with it. That one is like an FCAT but is all in Spanish,” she said. “It is given to them to see how far they are above or below grade level or whether they’re on grade level in Spanish… It is a cumulative exam, so we kind of see what they’ve learned between kindergarten and second grade, and then we get a baseline, so when they take it in fifth grade, we see how much growth there was.”

All that testing determines whether a certain moment has occurred for each student that Groover basically lives to make happen.

“I just love to see when the light goes on in a kid’s eyes because you have all of a sudden opened up an avenue of interest for them and motivated them to learn. That often comes through language, also through visual,” she said.

It’s what has kept her going back into the classroom for more than just supervising teachers; it’s why she enjoys her work.

“I do a lot of virtual science field trips, where we do things like, I take them to the national parks via the computer,” Groover explained. “When they are studying erosion and they see something like Bryce National Park, or Zion, or the Grand Canyon, they’re just blown away. That then leads them to leave my room, and find a book or a computer and continue to learn more about that area. So that, I think, is what’s huge — that you start that ball rolling, and then it gets momentum, and then… boom: kids want to learn.”

Under her leadership, the International Spanish Academy has grown to encompass three-quarters of New Horizons’ student population.

“We work in partnership with the Consul of Spain in Miami. We teach half of the day in English and half of the day in Spanish. The kids get an hour and a half of reading in English, and then they switch and go to their Spanish teachers, [many of whom] are provided through the Spanish consulate. They’re actually teachers from Spain who are with us on a three-year visa.”

The students get many of their lessons in Spanish.

“When they leave us in fifth grade, they do get a graduating certificate from the ISA signed by the Consulate of Spain’s educational attaché in Tallahassee, and it gives them the right to study abroad,” Groover said.

The ultimate goal then is met.

“These kids are bilingual when they graduate,” Groover said, adding that New Horizons ISA grads are going on to bigger things, given that great dual-language advantage. “Remember, the ISA has only been in place for 10 years. So the kids who started out with us are just now reaching the high school level or getting ready to graduate. We’ve had several kids at Suncoast and several at Wellington High School who are in honors programs. I think there are going to be great things that come out of here.”

 

Wellington The Magazine – September 2016

Wellington High School’s Jim Marshall Helps Students Find Their Calling In Life

Story by Chris Felker • Photos by Abner Pedraza

In his 34-year career in education, Jim Marshall’s focus has widened far beyond teaching science concepts to classrooms full of students. It has extended to helping guide groups of kids onto purposeful paths that can gain them swift entry into the work force, set them on their way to a career or reduce uncertainties about their future upon entering college.

As the choice programs coordinator at Wellington High School, Marshall was instrumental in the founding and growth of the school’s groundbreaking Fire Science Academy, which graduated its first class of cadets last May.

However, Marshall’s connection to WHS dates back decades. He started there the year the school opened in 1988 — as did his wife, Rebecca, in the math department.

Born in Spring Lake, Mich., Marshall grew up in the Tampa area after his family moved to Florida when he was a child. He met his wife while earning his degree in environmental biology from Emporia State University in Kansas, where they married and taught at local schools for about three years.

Yet Marshall started longing to get closer to the water. “Kansas was about as far as you could get from it,” he recalled. “My sister was down here, and the ‘Nation at Risk’ report had come out in the early 1980s. Pretty much every school district everywhere across the country was clamoring for science teachers.”

Originally, Marshall’s plan was to work as a field biologist for a government agency. “But the landscape had changed a lot from the 1970s. There weren’t many jobs out there, so I thought I’d do teaching as a part-time gig, but really fell in love with it,” he said.

His first job in Palm Beach County was as a dive instructor, but he was looking to get back into the classroom. “I interviewed at four schools, and picked up a job at Spanish River High School. I taught there for three years and was the number two guy in marine bio there. When Wellington High School opened in 1988, Principal Jake Sello hired me to teach science, and I have been here ever since,” Marshall said.

Over the years at WHS, he has taught several levels of marine science and Advanced Placement environmental science, plus has served as a department chair, activities director and assistant athletics director.

But it has been from his experiences helping to design WHS’s Equine Pre-Veterinary Academy, and then establishing the school’s Fire Science and Fine Arts academies, that has brought Marshall the greatest satisfaction of his educational career.

The pre-veterinary academy came first. “It has been about 10 years now since we started that,” Marshall said. “Cheryl Alligood was the principal, and she was looking to see where we could add some pieces and enhance what was already a great school. As we all know, what makes Wellington a little different is our equestrian community. So we took a look at this.”

Based on the school’s strong science faculty, Marshall helped develop a program designed to give students a firm equine/pre-veterinary background.

The idea for a Fire Science Academy arose in 2013 during the school’s annual “Shattered Dreams” production preceding prom, which is a mock teen fatality car accident staged with help from Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue.

“The kids go through about an hour lecture… giving them an awareness of what bad choices can look like,” Marshall explained. “Then there’s a mock event on the field. It’s all staged out, pretty dramatic. Principal Mario Crocetti and I were watching it, and he said, ‘You know, it’d be kind of cool if we had some sort of a public safety type of academy.’”

Marshall noticed several of his former students manning the rigs in the demonstration and got permission to do some research, during which he learned that many WHS alumni had gone on to become firefighters and paramedics. So, they decided to go ahead with establishing an academy.

“We partnered with Palm Beach State College early on,” Marshall said. “We knew they were going to be eventually where we’d send these students for their certification. We developed a plan for their instructors to come on our campus and teach, and that’s what we’re doing today.”

The academy is unique in Palm Beach County. While at least one other school has attempted it, WHS is the first to get the concept fully off the ground. “We are the first ones to put it all together and actually graduate, which we did this year, our first crop of candidates,” Marshall said.

The Fine Arts Academy came about at the school district’s suggestion, but Marshall was thrilled to help get it established.

“We know there are a lot of really quality, motivated, artistic kids who don’t get a seat at the Dreyfoos School of the Arts, so it was an idea to add into the western area a fine arts program,” Marshall explained. “And not only did we add it, but also Wellington Elementary School has added a program, as has Wellington Landings Middle School. So now, kids actually can come in as a [fine arts] choice program from all around the district into Wellington schools.”

Through these programs, he has seen students find their calling early in life. “We have very diverse programs to propel kids into college with a real sense of purpose, whether it be in the sciences, or in the marketing program, in business studies, even fine arts,” Marshall said. “The other piece of it that I’m really proud of is that the fire academy is a real high-school-to-work thing. Right now, our kids earn their first fire certification. They literally have just two more months of schooling to do, and they can become certified firefighters after high school.”

The youngest of Marshall’s three sons, Ian, is on track to reap the rewards. He is a senior in the WHS Fire Science Academy this year. Next spring, he’ll experience the thrill of a graduation co-celebrated by future potential crewmates. Local firefighters played ceremonial parts in the academy’s first graduation ceremony this past spring.

“It really was neat,” Marshall said. “The Palm Beach County Pipe & Drum Corps led the kids in, which was really special and set the mood for it. I think it was kind of the last link to propel these kids into a meaningful, purposeful life of service to their communities.”

Wellington The Magazine-August 2016

Integrated Fine Arts Programs Are Providing Unique Opportunities For Wellington Students

Story and Photos by Julie Unger

Expanded fine arts programs at Wellington schools are making it easier for art, band, chorus, dance and drama students, among others, to further their artistic education without leaving the community.

No longer do these students need to be bused out to specialty schools now that several area schools at all grade levels are expanding their fine arts academies. With the addition of a new fine arts choice program at Wellington Elementary School, local students can now follow an expanded fine arts curriculum from Wellington Elementary School to Wellington Landings Middle School, and on to Wellington High School.

Perhaps nowhere is this expanded curriculum more noticeable than in the amazing show beings produced by Wellington kids at all levels. At the very end of the last school year, Wellington Elementary Choral Director Dave Morrison led his students in a mesmerizing performance of Annie Kids. At WHS, Drama Director Dennis Schaber directed, designed and choreographed while Chorus Director Bradford Chase provided musical direction for recent productions such as Guys and Dolls and The Addams Family. Wellington Landings will be getting ready for its first production this school year.

Wellington Elementary Principal Dr. Maria Vaughan explained that she worked with Wellington Landings Principal Blake Bennett and WHS Principal Mario Crocetti on the creation of this integrated fine arts curriculum once she realized that her colleagues were also working on expanding their fine arts programming.

Aligning the programs, she explained, is the ideal scenario, because it gives the students continuity and somewhere to go.

“When you set up an academy, you really want it to have the kids be able to transition from each level — elementary, middle and high,” Vaughan said. “Once we realized all three of us were doing that, we met and talked about what we were offering at our school and what they’re offering at the middle and high school levels to try to make sure that we’re offering the same types of programs.”

For Vaughan, it’s exciting to work with nearby schools in this groundbreaking project. For her students, she said, it is also exciting because it gives them a glimpse at the future.

“It gives them a goal and ambition. It gives them motivation to continue doing well where they are, and helps them to strive for what’s at the next level,” Vaughan said.

The schools performed together at Wellington Elementary in the spring, with the chorus directors of each school speaking about their respective programs. Chase and Morrison joined Alayna Morton, the chorus director at Wellington Landings, to discuss the hard work and dedication it takes to be a choral student. Even in elementary school, rehearsals are up to four times a week, and it can take months to perfect a song. “It was an amazing experience for the kids,” Vaughan said.

About two months later, Vaughan’s students performed Annie Kids, and all three principals were on hand to enjoy the production. “It is absolutely amazing what Mr. Morrison has done with that program,” Vaughan added. “That show was just astounding. I don’t know how he’s going to top this one. It was pretty amazing, from the costumes to the set design to the acting… I’m very proud to be a part of that and to be able to help make that possible.”

Vaughan is looking forward to developing the school’s strings program with kindergartners and seeing the fine arts progress and integrate into the school’s curriculum. Hand bells, guitar, ukulele, TV production, art, journalism, chorus, drama, the student news crew and yearbook are just some of the ways the students have become engrossed in Wellington Elementary’s new fine arts academy. She noted that students will be able to select their strengths and develop as the program evolves.

Through the drama program, Vaughan said, once the students know what they are expected to do, they rise to the challenge and consistently exceed expectations. As students excel in the arts, other areas improve. “This is going to really impact the whole child. We’re looking forward to seeing how our kids are going to blossom,” she said.

At Wellington Landings, students do not need to have prior experience to take part in the fine arts curriculum, Bennett explained. Advanced classes, however, are audition-based.

Each student has two elective classes that can be filled with fine arts academy classes, such as journalism, band, chorus, hand bells, dance, art, speech/debate, law studies, drama and TV production.

Out-of-boundary students have to apply to the Wellington Landings academy, but all students zoned for the school automatically have access to the program.

“When I first came here, all we had was band, chorus, art and hand bells. All of the other ones, I’ve added over the years in hopes of pulling it all together to be a fine arts academy,” Bennett said.

Starting as early as kindergarten, Bennett said, allows the students to discover what they enjoy and where the arts take them. Having the options from kindergarten through their senior year in high school is a huge opportunity for the kids, she added.

Unlike specialty schools, the students at Wellington Landings are able to shift their focus from one type of fine arts to another and are able to take part in multiple classes, choosing to use one or both of their electives for fine arts classes.

“They’re performance-based classes, where they’re not being graded paper- and pencil-wise, they’re graded by their projects, products and performances,” Bennett said. “For example, in TV production, they’ll be producing the news — live. They’ll be writing scripts and producing.”

Children get to explore their creative side and are able to find different interests through arts programs, she explained.

“I think it’s just great for the kids,” Bennett said. “I think every community should have all the arts programs so that children can benefit from them. I’m really glad that the three of us worked together to make sure that all of the kids can enjoy the programs through their entire K-12 experience.”

On Aug. 8, new students can attend an orientation at Wellington Landings, where incoming sixth-graders can get their bearings.

As students progress to high school, they have access to remain with high-quality arts programs without leaving the Wellington area, Crocetti explained.

“We’ve had a fine arts program for quite a while, but with Wellington Landings and Wellington Elementary jumping on board, it makes a nice progression,” he said. “I’ve seen Wellington Landings students perform over the years and had the opportunity to see Wellington Elementary’s presentation of Annie, which was just phenomenal. It’s going to be a great pipeline.”

As part of the integrated program, the high school theater is going to be made available to the elementary and middle schools, Crocetti said.

Each of the schools are bringing in somewhere between 40 and 60 students from outside their boundaries to participate in their programs.

“They’re moving in all different aspects of the arts, whether it be the visual arts, vocal, instrumental, dance, theater — all areas,” Crocetti said.

Chase is excited about the new integrated fine arts curriculum, adding that it will make his job easier — especially with recruitment. “Having these kids discover what they’re interested in and find their passion, when they come to the high school, they’ll seek us out,” he said. “By the time they get to high school, we should have some students who are not only passionate about what they do, but they’ll also have training in those various art areas.”

In high school, the students take two fine arts classes each year and are encouraged to try different arts to be exposed to different things, he explained.

The WHS academy is in its third year and continues to grow. This is the first year with open doors through the lottery system.

Crocetti is excited to see what students from outside the area bring to the program through a fresh perspective and different, diverse points of view. “They’re an asset to the school,” he said. “They come with a different perspective,” he said.

All three Wellington schools are designated as choice schools, and are accepting students from out of the area to join in the programs. Students outside school boundaries are able to apply for the programs through the Palm Beach County School District.

For more info., visit www.palmbeachschools.org/choiceprograms or contact the schools directly. Call Wellington Elementary at (561) 651-0600, Wellington Landings at (561) 792-8100 or Wellington High School at (561) 795-4900.

Wellington The Magazine-July 2016

Anita Kane Of #1 Education Place Gets Joy Out Of Helping Her Students Succeed

Story by Chris Felker • Photos by Abner Pedraza

The life of local educator Anita Kane, co-founder of #1 Education Place in Wellington, has come full circle. Growing up in a private school setting, she has now created an educational institution to meet the unique needs of today’s students.

As a child whose entire youth was spent on the 25-acre campus of one of the largest private day schools on the East Coast, located in the outskirts of Washington, D.C., Kane was exposed daily to the educational world her parents occupied full-time.

They owned and ran the Potomac Country Day School in Maryland, founded four years before she was born.

“We also ran one of the largest summer day camps on the East Coast,” Kane recalled. “I grew up with a lot of that stuff, a lot of involvement, and I think that’s probably why I thought I wanted to get away from it.”

Growing up, the school was always a large part of life.

“People would forget their books at school, and they had no problem just coming up to the house and knocking on the door while we were eating dinner and saying, ‘I need you to go unlock the school building.’ It was a real community, and I thought I wanted to get away from that.”

So, she left for Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Va., and earned a bachelor’s degree in political science. Then it was off to law school at George Mason University. “I told myself that I wasn’t going to do the education thing; I was going to go to law school,” Kane said. “Until I had a child, and then I decided I needed to be involved in that.”

She got married while attending law school and had her son, Sean Joseph Kane. “But I was a single mom from the time my son was 2,” Kane said. “So I went back and got several levels of Montessori teacher training, and I got a master of arts in teaching from Trinity College in Washington, and then started working at the school in Maryland that my son went to.”

She came to Florida when she was recruited by a private school in Palm Beach in the mid-1990s to help establish a new program. “After three years, we agreed that things weren’t working out,” Kane said. “I found myself without a job and with six horses, three dogs and a child. I walked away from a job for the first time in my life.”

So, years after she had left behind the educational community she grew up in, Kane joined with a former colleague to establish #1 Education Place. “Interestingly enough, that’s what we’ve really tried to create here — a community,” she said.

Now located in the original Wellington Mall, #1 Education Place grew in large part out of her and her son’s connections in equestrian circles. “I had been involved in the horse-show world my whole life,” she said. “We were supposed to go to the Charleston Summer Classic that summer.”

It was 1999. “Everybody said, ‘Oh… go ahead anyhow, you can groom for me, and you can do this…’ Then people started asking me to tutor their children. From tutoring children over the summer, it got to be doing school with children in their homes during the school year. Then, after a year or so, it got so big that I couldn’t handle it.”

That is when she partnered up with co-founder Judy Blake. “For about two years, we did this school from our cars,” Kane recalled. “We traveled around, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger, between circuit clients and year-round students.”

That’s when #1 Education Place got a permanent location, just across the street from where the school currently resides. “What we thought originally was just going to be a tutoring service wound up turning into a private school,” Kane said. “The need became apparent very quickly for a private school that would serve children who have different needs than a child who can go to school from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.”

Many of their clients are either professionals or athletes, as are a good number of the students.

“Many of our students are athletes, not just equestrians, but we’ve also had race car drivers and models and ice skaters,” Kane said. “What happens with those children, who really have a profession basically at the tender age of 15, is that they can’t really go to school on that kind of a regular schedule.”

#1 Education Place, which serves students in first through 12th grades and sometimes beyond, now is going into its 16th year. It has around a dozen faculty members, serving between 40 and 60 students at any given time during the year, and a dozen or more during the summer.

Kane went on to earn certificates from Independent School Management (ISM) in school policy design and implementation, and now is teaching mostly English at her school. She has also taught business communication, English, professional development and computer skills to adults in the past, but is now concentrating on her duties at the school.

Part of that is deciding which students to accept. “About 20 to 30 percent of our students are just those for whom traditional school doesn’t really work,” she said. “We accept something called the McKay scholarship, and it’s for students who have any kind of learning need from an undiagnosed one to those who have muscular dystrophy or other disorders that make it very difficult for them to be in the public school system.”

Yet the school remains very well known for its connections to the horse community.

“It began through the horse connection, and still, I would say, it’s a very strong connection,” Kane said. “This school is really a microcosm inside of that community. We get a lot of repeat people, and friends and family. We’ve had all the Gracida kids.”

Her personal reward from her full-circle career has changed, though, since she first started the school. It’s partly because last year she lost her son, who taught math at the school. He went to sleep after a normal day last fall and never woke up. She has started a scholarship in his name.

“So yeah, my focus has changed now. It keeps me alive; it keeps me happy. Always my focus has been, I get great joy out of giving to these children,” Kane said.

What she gets out of it is a lot of gratitude and the joy of seeing their success.

“To have a child who couldn’t succeed someplace else, or who everybody else thinks is a pain in the pitfeathers, and to be able to connect with that child, to be able to be a participant in somebody’s transformation, that’s my reward,” Kane said.

For more information, call (561) 753-6563 or visit www.1educationplace.com.