Representatives of the School District of Indian River County, local government and nonprofit organizations gathered at the Vero Beach Rowing Boathouse at the invitation of School Superintendent David Moore and Shotsi Cain Lajoie, president of the nonprofit Vero Beach Rowing, to discuss ways the community can continue to enrich young lives.
Moore, who became superintendent in January 2020, started things off by discussing the challenges the school district faced before, during and after the pandemic.
Data from 2018-19, the last full pre-pandemic school year, indicated that the district had a ranking of 38 out of 67 counties. When Moore came on board, he implemented a five-year strategic plan to place the district in the top 10 percent by 2025.
During the pandemic the district distributed laptops to every student and made sure hotspots gave them access, but even after the majority of students returned to brick-and-mortar learning, there were ongoing disruptions with virus variants.
Despite those obstacles, Moore said they continued to look at how to improve the quality of instruction and meet student needs and, in fact, did so. Current data shows that Indian River has moved up 16 state rankings, the highest level of improvement in the state of Florida for a district this size.
Moore said they want to continue increasing community engagement through partnerships with the myriad organizations created to be of service to children, such as Indian River Rowing. The goal now is to connect children with organizations across the entire community to fill whatever voids they may have in their lives.
“We think together, we can be very strategic in matching those organizations with the right children in order to grow them,” said Moore.
“The school system is not a barrier to providing access to our children. Our teachers know intimately some of the concerns and issues that our students need help and support in, and we know that you have a lot of those resources to address those concerns,” said Moore.
Lajoie noted that three weeks after opening its facility in February 2020, VBR had to shut things down, although they eventually adapted operations in various ways, including single-person rowing.
“It’s more than just physical fitness, it’s more than teams. It’s personal development on a scale that I’ve never seen before because of the nature of the sport,” said Lajoie.
A year ago, Wilfred Hart, the school district’s community liaison specialist, organized a similar gathering, inviting community partners to learn about VBR, develop existing relationships and produce additional partnerships. That meeting generated a relationship with the Gifford Aquatic Center and increased access to middle and high school students through recruitment efforts.
Those students have since had great results competing at state, regional and national levels which, in turn, is encouraging other students to take up the sport.
“We’re proud of our coaches,” said Lajoie, introducing head coach Julio Sanchez. Originally from Argentina, Sanchez coached the Colombian National Rowing Team at the Worlds in Rio and in 2018 he won the World Master Rowing Championship in Sarasota.
Whether the students want to learn the sport purely for enjoyment or to compete, Sanchez said, “the most important thing for us is to give them the values that this sport can provide.”
Lajoie said that one area of concern is that VBR needs greater access to afterschool transportation, especially for economically disadvantaged youth, which will help with their next outreach objective, greater diversity.
Vero Beach Rowing has programs for adults as well as for youth rowers starting at age 12 and plays host to visiting teams from colleges and universities.
For more information visit VeroBeachRowing.org.
Photos by Joshua Kodis
