Windermere Prep leaders discuss safety, growth at State of the School

Windermere Preparatory School hosted its spring 2023 State of the School address Tuesday, April 4, at the Cypress Center for the Arts. 

Head of School Dr. Mitchell Salerno discussed a wide range of topics — including recent highlights and opportunities.

“It’s been a really incredible year so far,” Salerno said. 

Some of the accomplishments include the middle school band achieving a superior rating for the first time from the Florida Bandmasters Association; 11 National Merit finalists in this year’s senior class; the boys basketball team finishing as the Class 3A FHSAA state runners-up; the school’s participation in the Junior Global Games in Costa Rica; and a school-led trip to Tanzania. 

SCHOOL SAFETY

Salerno said he would be remiss not to talk about school safety and safeguarding, especially following the recent Covenant School shooting in Nashville, Tennessee. 

“All school shootings are horrendous,” he said. “The one that happened last week was different for schools like ours. It was the first time that a private school, that largely has done everything that we’ve been told to do from a best-practices standpoint, had an incident. … The school in Nashville had done everything right that we had been told with lockdowns, with all of the measures. The only two things that they didn’t have: gate security … and a police officer on site.”

Salerno said the school is currently reviewing its safety protocols.

He also has invited Barry Armstrong, head of safeguarding at Nord Anglia Education, to campus, who will arrive at the end of the month to complete a full-campus review.

VOUCHERS/SCHOOL CHOICE

Salerno mentioned House Bill 1, a major expansion of Florida’s Family Empowerment Scholarship, by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Essentially, the bill eliminates income restrictions and enrollment limits and allows almost any Florida household with a student in elementary, middle or high school to receive a school voucher. 

The voucher would contain the amount their local public school would have received if they had attended and can be used to pay for private school tuition, for homeschooling resources if state guidelines are met or, because of new “education savings accounts,” to pay for other school-related costs. 

Salerno said he attended a meeting with the Florida Council of Independent Schools, the school’s accrediting body, where attendees discussed the legislation. 

“There is a lot of confusion still as to what the Legislature has actually done and what the governor actually wants,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out what it is and what it means for schools. This much we know: Based upon council from our accreditation agency, the money is probably going into buckets where the McKay, Gardiner and Step Up scholarships go. … Windermere Prep has never taken money out of those buckets. … The challenge is that, at a governmental level, there has not been an explanation of what the strings are that come when you take the money from a school level.”

Salerno said WPS has yet to make a determination as to whether the school will start to take money out of those areas in the future. He said the money that goes into those areas also will most likely be limited and will first go to categories such as income level. 

“Is that something that we can do, should do, wise to do?” he said. “We don’t know, but my recommendation to you is do not expect to have money from the state that you will be paying to WPS this year.”

ACADEMICS

Salerno said one of the key highlights of academics this time of year is where students are going to college. This year, students already have been accepted into schools such as New York University, Stanford University, Yale University, Vanderbilt, West Point and Brown University. 

A brief update also was given on the high school pathways and concentrations Salerno had discussed at the fall State of the School address in September. 

Salerno said Steve Murphy, the high school director who started in July, has completed a full review, with the help of the high school team, on the courses the school offers, and he determined many of the International Baccalaureate offerings are heavily academic and, in some ways, out of reach for a lot of high school students.

“There are other offerings that are far more accessible, which allow a broader variety of students to benefit from the philosophy of IB teaching and learning,” Salerno said. “As we begin to install those courses in next year’s offerings, that carves the way for pathways to begin to be put into place.”

Salerno said the school also will transition from seven periods to eight periods next school year. 

“Good work has been done; we’re on our way to pathways,” he said. “I promised it was going to be a two- to three-year process, and we will be able to deliver on the back end on the timeline that we said we would.”

The school also has begun reviewing the primary years program and the middle years program and is considering the possibility of becoming a continuum school — a school that offers at least three of the core programs from IB. The school will be looking at aligning the curriculum for all grade levels. 

CAMPUS IMPROVEMENTS 

The school announced the work on the school’s stadium, the addition of a proper running track with rubber and a turf field, at the fall address. In addition, it announced the work on the courtyard transformations in the Lower School area, where the courtyards are being removed to build patios and turf play spaces for students, and the replacement of the Lower School playground.

Although the school originally predicted the playground work would be completed in January, Salerno said the playground has not yet been touched, as the school is still waiting on a permit from Orange County. 

“We’ve been told, hopefully, that within a couple weeks, we should have that finished and that playground work should begin,” he said. “The work for the stadium has also gone through the joys of permitting. It is very, very close. … Hopefully, sometime this month ground will break on the stadium. Both projects should be completed before the start of school (in August).”