One of the most important factors to the long-term prosperity of a community is the quality of education offered to its children. That’s why increasing the city’s role in education has been a major goal of this City Commission.

 Our first step three years ago was to hire the city’s first ever chief education officer and task her with finding ways to expand the city involvement with the school district and local colleges and target areas where we could help make improvements.

 We are committed to being a community with world-class schools and a great place to raise a family, so we are proud to have seen a lot of success in this initiative.

 The efforts undertaken have drawn accolades within the education world. The state Department of Education recognized the city of Fort Lauderdale last fall with its 2021 Commissioner’s Business Recognition Award. This honors organizations that have brought positive change to education and helped implement bold and innovative approaches to improving academic performance.

 So what has the commission been doing with the help of Zoie Saunders, the chief education officer, and our Education Advisory Board? Let me share the details…

 The Bezos Academy

 The city is working to expand early education for our residents through a unique partnership with Bezos Academy and the school district. The Bezos Academy was started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and provides full-day, year-round preschool for underserved communities without any tuition fee.

 Our staff worked with principals and the community in the site selection process and we believe this program will have a tremendous positive impact on early childhood education.

 The School Board will soon review the proposal at a workshop, its first look at it. We hope the terms are close to being finalized and that we can look forward to launching the Montessori-inspired program at select schools in the city in the near future.

 The Global Institute of Sport

 I was honored recently to join with Jorge Mas, one of the owners of the Inter Miami soccer team, to launch a campus of the Global Institute of Sport at DRV PNK Stadium.

 This is the Global Institute of Sport's first full campus in North America and will provide educational programs for students interested in pursuing careers in sports business. When fully established, the campus could bring a total of 300 jobs to support more than 1,500 students a year.

 This is a great project that will expand education opportunities and bring economic growth to our community.

 From the beginning, I said that our partnership with David Beckham to bring pro-soccer to Fort Lauderdale was more than about sports entertainment. He and his partners built a stadium at no cost to taxpayers, but they also brought their soccer academy, training facility and corporate headquarters here.

 Now, we have more to show for this partnership -- a stellar educational campus of international repute.

Aviation career programs  With our community’s location between Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and our own executive airport, this commission recognized that we have a golden opportunity to become a worldwide hub for aviation education.  Aviation job projections in Broward County are expected to increase substantially in the next five years. We intend to create multiple education paths for students to move into the high-demand and cutting-edge fields of aviation.  Our first such effort was the launch of an avionics program at Atlantic Technical College in partnership with the school district, local colleges and the business community.  The curriculum was customized to meet the specifications of industry partners. Avionics is the specialization in the repair and maintenance of a plane’s electronic instruments. The increased use of digital technology on aircraft has meant more time is spent maintaining computer systems, and that has created a greater need for avionics training.  Our second step is to create an aviation workforce training facility. We hired a consultant to conduct a feasibility study and needs analysis for a training program and will soon receive their final report. The findings should further clarify the demand and need.

 

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