Putnam County School District - Shaping the Future

For families of students at Jenkins Elementary School: This morning shortly after school began, a school administrator found a BB gun in a bathroom on campus. The school enacted a lock down until the situation could be investigated. Putnam County Sheriff's Office deputies on scene determined there was no threat and the found BB gun was unloaded and inoperable. The lockdown was lifted and school has resumed as normal. Deputies and school staff are continuing to investigate, but at this time there is believed to be no threat to the campus, students, faculty or staff. A call was made earlier by school administrators to all Jenkins Elementary families immediately after the lockdown through our School Messenger system. If you have a student at Jenkins Elementary, and did not receive that call, please be sure that you update your contact information with the school. Thank you!

PCSD's K-2 teachers, school-based coaches, and administrators came together this week to continue their journey to learn the new B.E.S.T. Standards for ELA and plan for instruction of the standards using their new Benchmark Advance curriculum. Teams reviewed the new benchmarks, explored curriculum resources, learned a structure for backwards planning, and worked collaboratively to design Unit 3 lesson plans. #ProudtobePCSD

Sarajean McDaniel, Executive Director for Leadership Development & 2020 FL Principal of the Year, was honored at the FSU football game. She, along with other educators of the year honorees, were recognized for their continued dedication to Florida’s children! #ProudtobePCSD

PSAT TESTING Wednesday, October 13, 2021 Notification for ALL students in grades 8, 9, 10 & 11 PSAT gives students an opportunity to experience and practice a college readiness test. All students can learn their academic strengths and access free, personalized prep for the SAT. Students in grades 10 & 11 can earn a concordant score for the Algebra EOC graduation requirement! *If you do not wish for your child to participate, please contact their school's testing coordinator.

Please see information from Health Services Coordinator, Kena Foster, regarding updated COVID-19 testing sites!

The following message is for staff, students, and families of Interlachen Jr-Sr High School from the Putnam County Sheriff's Office: Please be aware we have received information of a threat at Interlachen Jr-Sr High School. At this time the threat does not appear to be credible. However, during morning drop-off, parents will notice an increase in law enforcement presence that will continue throughout the day as we continue to investigate this unverified threat. We urge parents and guardians to talk to their students about the seriousness of making a written threat about a school campus. We take every threat seriously and will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. A written threat is considered a second-degree felony. Anyone with information about the threat that occurred in reference to Interlachen Jr-Sr High School is asked to contact CrimeStoppers of NE Florida at 1-888-277-8477, download the P3 app, or use the ForitifyFL app. Students can access FortifyFL on their chromebooks or at www.putnamschools.org. All tips are anonymous. There is no further information to be released at this time as to the nature of the threat. Please remember this is an active investigation.

We're celebrating #ConstitutionDay Signed in 1787, the Constitution is the foundation of our government and establishes our rights as Americans. Governor Ron DeSantis spoke on the importance of this day: https://rumble.com/vmlp8f-constitution-day-2021.html

Parents! We need your HELP! We have seen an increase of vandalized property in our schools this week prompted by a recent Tik Tok challenge. Please talk to your students about the severity of this destructive behavior. This causes a severe disruption for all students and staff. We appreciate your support in keeping our schools clean and safe for everyone.

The PCSD District Office held a Ramen Noodle RoundUp for Feed the Need Putnam! Thank you to everyone who contributed to this cause. Pictured: Alice Keith, Renee Hough, Tracy Piscitello, and Rebecca Motes #ProudtobePCSD

This is an AWESOME opportunity for our PCSD students. Don't miss out! You must register for this event. Your parents/guardians may also want to connect to this resource as well. Please share! #ProudtobePCSD LINK: https://bit.ly/3lpeBEM

COVID-19 Testing at No Cost to You Teacher Training Center 1101 Husson Ave, Palatka, FL Starting September 14th Tuesday - Saturday 9:00AM-5:00PM Schedule an appointment at curative.com

Please join PCSD as we honor and remember those that lost their lives on 9/11/01. We are grateful to our first responders & military personnel that protect us & ensure our freedom. We will never forget!

GUARDIAN PROGRAM RECOGNIZED August 11, 2021 Did you know since the 2018-19 school year Putnam County Schools have had anonymous protectors in the schools called Guardians? Following the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018, Sheriff Gator DeLoach and Superintendent of Schools Rick Surrency began a plan to arm school employees on campuses as additional safety for students and staff. Residents were vocal on both sides, but ultimately the Guardian program prevailed and is showing to be an overwhelming success in safeguarding our schools and supplementing our youth resource deputies. Recently, Sheriff DeLoach and Superintendent Surrency presented the Guardian program at a National School Safety conference. Guardians undergo a long selection process including mental health evaluations, more instructional hours than required by the state, physical evaluations, live shooting simulations and more. In the three years since the program began Guardians have provided insight in situational awareness and helping further harden our schools. Guardians were also instrumental in several school lockdowns in which students were found with weapons on campus, all while maintaining their anonymity. In these cases students were never in danger and classes resumed as normal. Currently we have 60 Guardians in Putnam County schools who serve as a force multiplier for our deputies in stopping threats to our children. Our deputies and Guardians take their mission to protecting the schools seriously and would engage any threat willingly and without hesitancy. We are ready and prepared for the upcoming school year. #ProudtobePCSD

In an effort to keep our students and staff safe in environments where social distancing is difficult, we will require all students and staff to wear a mask when riding a school bus beginning Wednesday, September 1, 2021, until further notice. Thank you!

August 27, 2021 Video message from Dr. Rick Surrency: https://youtu.be/qSdIJoAOmcc

For the health and safety of our students, families, and college and career representatives, the College and Career Fair scheduled for Thursday, August 26th at Palatka Junior Senior High School, has been cancelled. Unfortunately, due to the limited schedules of our college and career partners, we will be unable to reschedule an event for this school year. We will be exploring future alternate options for our students to participate in college and career orientation opportunities. Thank you for your understanding.

The Future of Florida Agriculture! At a recent school board meeting PCSD FFA Students were recognized for their hard work and skilled dedication to their agricultural passions. We could not be more proud of these students and want to take a moment to share their incredible accomplishments! Te'a Startz, Emily Lands and Kallie Johnson earned the highest degree offered through the Florida FFA Association which is the State FFA Degree. All three young ladies had to achieve a certain level of community service, FFA involvement and a successful Supervised Agricultural Experience Project. Te'a Startz has competed in the Prepared Public Speaking competition through FFA for the past six years. This year she was a top four finalist and placed 3rd in the state for this event. Her speech was focused around food insecurity and ways we can combat the issue of hunger in our community through practices such as urban agriculture. Tristan Pogue also was a competitor in the Florida Farm Bureau Discussion Meet contest where he was given a current agricultural issue topic and had to discuss for 30 minutes in a group of four individuals from other FFA Chapters. Tristan did a great job of being courteous to his competitors while actively engaging in solutions to our agriculture issues. Clayton Brauman was awarded the Florida FFA State Star Farmer award. This is the highest proficiency award that can be bestowed upon an FFA member. His SAE (Supervised Agricultural Experience) project started when Clayton first joined FFA his 7th grade year here at Q.I. Roberts. He started his project with five feeder cattle that was gifted to him by his grandfather. With his five head, he grew his herd into a 65 head purebred Charolais beef cattle operation in a 5 year time frame. He has also been accepted into Oklahoma State University where he will earn a bachelor's degree in Animal Science with an emphasis on business. We are beyond proud of him and his accomplishments. Samantha Harper, a sophomore, was also selected as the top 4 finalist in the Small Animal Proficiency Category. She started out with one rabbit and now breeds and operates 25 show rabbits. She was also recognized for Florida FFA Courtesy Corps during the 93rd Florida State FFA Convention. Breawna Smith, a junior, competed in the top 12 for Extemporaneous Public Speaking. In this competition, Breawna chose from a list of agricultural topics and wrote a 3-5 minute speech on that topic. She then delivered that speech to a panel of judges. She did an amazing job and represented Q.I. Roberts very well. Amber Nunamaker, an 8th grader, competed in the Florida State Creed Speaking Contest. She memorized the FFA Creed, written by E. M. Tiffany. Presented the FFA Creed with enthusiasm and poise in front of a panel of judges and then answered specific questions about the creed and what it means to her. It took lots of practice and dedication and we could not be anymore proud of her achievement. #ProudtobePCSD

It was another amazing New Teacher Summer Institute for PCSD! We had two days of fun, building connections and most of all, learning. Thank you to all our sponsors and community members that contributed to NTI; the love you show our teachers is wonderful! #ProudtobePCSD

Thank you to 91.3 HOPE FM for supporting our schools with today's school supply drive! Pictured here are Superintendent Dr. Rick Surrency, Robin Robinson from HOPE FM, and Felicia Cahan from PCSD Public Relations.

The Back to School Sales Tax Holiday begins this Saturday! Here's the list of what we need the most: Dry Erase Markers and Erasers Wide-Ruled Spiral Notebooks Washable Markers Glue Sticks Tissues Drop off supplies in our PCSD SCHOOL BUS at 3419 St. Johns Ave in Palatka and receive a complimentary Kona Ice! #ProudtobePCSD