There should no longer be any doubt: Our schools superintendent is something special.
He’s probably the best we’ve ever had, though there’s no reason to diminish the accomplishments of some of his predecessors.
He might be the best in Florida, given the steady progress our school district has enjoyed since his arrival four years ago, when he made it his mission to take us to the upper echelon of the state rankings.
At the very least, Dr. David Moore has put together a Most Valuable Player season, delivering on his promise by leading the county’s school district to an “A” grade from the Florida Department of Education, based on its performance for the 2022-23 school year.
It’s the school district’s first “A” since 2015, which is an achievement worth celebrating, especially when you consider only 16 of 67 districts across Florida earned “A” grades this year.
Ours was also the only “A” school district on the Treasure Coast, as well as the only “A” district that didn’t have a long history of being one.
What’s more impressive, however, is that we are home to the state’s most-improved school district, having our District Grade jump 9 percentage points – from 59 in 2021-22 to 68 in 2022-23.
Did you know:
- Four district elementary schools (Glendale, Citrus, Pelican Island and Treasure Coast) improved one letter grade, and 78 percent of them received either “A” or “B” grades, including Beachland, which earned an “A” in consecutive years for the first time since 2015.
- Vero Beach High School and Oslo Middle School improved from “C” to “B” grades, and a total of seven of our schools improved one letter grade.
- In 2022-23, 65 percent of our schools received “A” or “B” grades, compared to only 47 percent in 2018-2019.
In addition, our school district’s ranking in third-grade reading has soared from 31st in Florida in 2018-19 to seventh this year. During that same period, our rankings in mathematics (third through eighth grades) and science (fifth and eighth grades) have jumped from the mid-30s to the top 15.
Our schools are rated 10th in eighth-grade science achievement.
And remember: These improvements are only a snapshot of a trend that began under Moore, who has overseen the school district’s steady rise in the overall state rankings from 38th in 2019 to 22nd in 2022, followed by a big jump to 13th this year.
To be sure, Moore openly shares credit for this marked improvement with staff, principals, teachers, students, parents and local non-profit organizations that support and enhance the district’s work.
“The “A” belongs to the community,” he said.
No one, though, should doubt the impact of the contributions made by groups that include The Learning Alliance, Indian River Community Foundation, Crossover Mission and Gifford Youth Achievement Center.
Their efforts provide after-school programs that extend the school day for students who need, and benefit from, the additional help.
We should also take this festive occasion to acknowledge the often-unappreciated efforts of classroom teachers, who are on the front lines of public education, working in a challenging and ever-changing environment.
The same goes for principals, who oversee schools that are much different from those that many of us attended decades ago.
Both own a piece of this “A.”
But as School Board member Brian Barefoot said in heaping praise on Moore for setting our school district on course for this dramatic turnaround it has experienced the past four years: “It starts at the top.”
While the school district’s progress has been a team effort, none of this happens without Moore, whose daunting task was made more difficult by unexpected obstacles – not the least of which was the COVID-19 pandemic.
Just three months into his new job here, the coronavirus paralyzed America, where schools were closed and “remote learning” became a part of our vernacular.
When schools reopened, the uber-conservative Moms For Liberty group was born, co-founded in our county by former and failed School Board member Tiffany Justice, who launched a campaign opposing mask mandates on campus.
Little did anyone know at the time that the Moms, pushing a bogus parental-rights agenda that embraced concocted culture-war issues, would become such a nagging and unnecessary nuisance.
To this day, the Moms repeatedly and desperately attempt to divert the attention of our School Board and superintendent from the district’s mission of improving the quality of education and student outcomes.
Moore, however, remained focus on his job, and he made sure his staff and other administrators did the same – throughout COVID and its aftermath.
“We might be the one district in the state that decided learning loss doesn’t have to be a real thing,” Moore said of the pandemic’s effects on students. “Was it frustrating?
Absolutely. Was it a setback? Yes.
“But, for us, it was never an excuse.”
Nor were the Moms’ antics, which included an orchestrated, headline-grabbing effort to remove from school libraries books the group deemed pornographic – a low-brow plot that succeeded, but also resulted in death threats being made against then-board chair Peggy Jones.
The Moms were successful, however, only because they had the support of the Florida Legislature, which aligned with the group’s hard-right political positions and passed a series of new education-related laws.
Moore dealt with them, too.
“That’s certainly a challenge,” Moore said of adapting to the slew of new state legislation.
“Our goal is to remain vigilant and stay in front of the shifts from Tallahassee, then making sure our teachers know how to implement the changes as they come.”
It was both bizarre and comical to see the Moms pathetically turn to social media to try to claim credit for the school district’s success, when their unwanted interference has worked almost exclusively to its detriment.
(There’s no good reason to give the fringe group more of the attention it craves by publishing its nonsensical postings.)
Through it all, though, Moore continued to demand that the entire school district staff stay focused on the job it was hired to do. Or as he calls it: “Keeping the main thing the main thing.”
Moore also required his lieutenants to get out of their offices and be present on school campuses – another tactic he believes was a factor in our progress.
“You’ve got to inspect what you expect,” he said. “We want our teachers and principals to know that every administrator in the district is focused on education and outcomes.”
Moore’s performance the past four years hasn’t gone unnoticed around the state, where school boards and superintendents in other districts want to know his secret for success.
Not only have representatives from other districts visited with him, but he also has been asked to speak at public-education conventions and conferences.
“People are looking at Indian River County,” Moore said.
People are also looking at him.
Moore’s success here will make him a more attractive candidate for other jobs, particularly in Florida. Only a handful of other superintendents in the state have occupied their positions longer than him.
“Job offers come all the time,” Moore said, quickly adding that he’s not looking to go elsewhere.
“When I came here,” he said, “it was about finding a place that felt like home, where I can be happy.”
Moore seems to be happy now, especially after seeing the rewards of his work, but he knows maintaining the “A” grade will require an even-greater effort than was necessary to get this one.
“It will be significantly more difficult to get the second “A,” so we’ve got to continue to improve,” Moore said. “The same effort will not yield the same result.”
As long as we keep the same guy in charge, you’ve got to like our chances.