Strawberry Crest High School has been selected as one of the kickoff schools for the eighth annual Celebrate Literacy Week, Florida! event, and one special visitor is coming to inspire a love of reading and writing: Ann Scott, Florida Governor Rick Scott’s wife.
Ann Scott will arrive in the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World at 10 a.m. Monday, Jan. 25. Students from Bailey Elementary, Cork Elementary and Tomlin Middle schools will join her.
Students will perform skits and cheers centered around both literacy and history. Close to 1,000 students will be in attendance at the ceremony.
“The theme of this contest is ‘Literacy Changes Our World,’” Strawberry Crest High School Principal David Brown said. “We’re trying to tie it in with civics.”
The skits will center around the reading of the preamble, Washington Crossing the Delaware, the 13th Amendment, immigration in the 1800s and readings of World War II letters.
The skits will be followed by speakers Ann Scott, Hillsborough County Public Schools Superintendent Jeff Eakins, Florida Teacher of the Year Diane McKee, Interim Secretary of the Florida Lottery Tom Delacenserie and Florida Public Schools Chancellor Hershel Lyons.
Though the week is centered around literacy, Strawberry Crest promotes literacy to its students and its feeder schools year round.
“We do literacy every day,” Brown said.
Many of Strawberry Crest’s clubs and organizations reach out to area elementary and middle school students to help with reading and other subjects. The school’s Leo Club works with Dover Elementary School students by helping them write letters to Santa during the holiday season. Then, club members “adopt” a student and give each student a toy and a book to further promote reading. The school also has a reading club that goes to Bailey Elementary once a week and helps with mentoring migrant students.
Brown teaches his students, especially his seniors, that they are mentors for the younger high school, middle and elementary school students.
“Our message to seniors is, ‘You guys, you’re the role models,’” he said.
Contact Emily Topper at etopper@plantcityobserver.com.
CONTEST CONTENDER
This year, Strawberry Crest’s students in the veterinary assistance program put together a project that they entered in a contest sponsored by Celebrate Literacy Week, Florida! Advanced vet assistant students taught students at Bailey Elementary how to care for pets. Then, they helped each student put together a book about pet care.
As students read the books they made, they are able to complete coloring activities.
“It’s just so easy for us to be mentors to them,” Strawberry Crest High School Principal David Brown said.