10 minute read
A cause of frustration for some
WOLTANSKI TO SEEK RE-ELECTION TO SCHOOL BOARD
CHARLOTTE TWINE
charlotte@keysweekly.com
Sue Woltanski has an all-consuming passion. And it occupies her from when she wakes up in the morning till she goes to sleep at night: public education.
“I think people up here know that my passion is making public education the best it can be for our kids,” she told Keys Weekly. “That is what I’m focused on almost every waking minute.”
And that is why she’s running for her second term for District 5 of Monroe County’s school board against newcomer Alexandria Suarez. Woltanski said she simply isn’t finished with having her voice be heard.
Per keyssschools.com, District 5 starts from the easternmost boundary of District 4 — MM 93 — east to the Dade County line, including all of mainland Monroe County.
Woltanski was elected, unopposed, as District 5’s representative in 2018. She is a retired pediatrician and a mother of two Monroe County students, one of whom, Ali, graduated from Coral Shores High School and is attending Georgetown University with a major in foreign service.
Woltanski was raised in the San Francisco Bay area, where her father was a local school administrator. She attended U.C. Santa Barbara as an undergraduate, earning a bachelor’s degree in pharmacology, and U.C. Davis for a master’s degree in exercise physiology), before moving to Michigan to attend the University of Michigan School of Medicine, where she ultimately specialized in general pediatrics.
She and her husband, Tom, an ER physician, have been homeowners in Tavernier since 1999. They moved permanently to the Keys in 2008 so their children could grow up next door to their grandmother.
“I’m not done serving the children of Monroe,” she said. “My son (Zack, in 10th grade) is still in school. Projects we’ve started, like with mental health, I’d like to see fulfilled. For example, the superintendent would like more social workers with a mental health focus. Most recently, the governor has announced plans to change testing associated with the accountability system. The amount of testing in the schools is the reason I got into following education policy. This is an opportunity for the district to move to a more studentfocused and less test-focused system of education.”
Her background as a pediatrician led to her advocacy for COVID mitigation strategies, including the use of masks, in the school system during the pandemic. Her stance at times was at odds with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ executive order that only parents should decide whether a child wears a mask to school.
“I’m guided by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and pediatricians support public health measures,” she said. “The biggest advances in children’s health have been through public health measures like car seats, seatbelts and vitamin D in milk. Pediatricians know the value of doing what’s best for all children. I think we’re moving out of (the pandemic). I doubt we’ve seen the last wave, but I’m hopeful no wave will be as bad as the one Delta was.”
Woltanski pointed out that during this time, she has seen other school districts as a target of anger and vitriol from within their own communities.
“When I speak to people here, I don’t get that feeling,” she said. “I think we want what’s best for our kids, as seen by the donations to scholarships, fundraisers and renewing tax referendums for the schools. The kids are being well-served by a community that values education. I’m privileged to be a part of that.”
School board member Sue Woltanski is running for her second term. AIMEE GILMAN/Contributed
DRESS CODE UNDER SCRUTINY
KEYS STUDENT ASKS DISTRICT TO FOCUS ON RESPECT RATHER THAN POLICE GIRLS’ CLOTHING
CHARLOTTE TWINE
charlotte@keysweekly.com
Seventeen-year-old Daniela Briones-Moreno, a Key West High School senior with plans to go to college, stood up and spoke about the district’s dress code at the Oct. 26 school board meeting after years of frustration.
“I realize our schools’ intention with the dress code is to get us ready for our professional lives, and I completely understand that,” she said. “But you are also enforcing the dress code with the rationale that males are distracted by what we wear, which isn’t right. You are teaching us that males will never respect women unless we dress properly and that the way you dress determines how you get respected.”
Ironically, after the meeting, Briones-Moreno realized that the shirt she was wearing, a black top that was off the shoulder, would not have met Key West High School standards. She may have been “dress-coded,” the students’ lingo for when they are told to either go home and change or cover up.
“The off-the-shoulder top was just a coincidence,” she told Keys Weekly. “I gave a speech and was dressed professionally.”
Per Keysschools.com, Monroe County School District has a general dress code, but each school can make more specific requirements. Key West High School’s dress code policy says: “Tops must have sleeves that cover the shoulder. No sleeveless, straps or bare midriff tops are permitted. Shirts and tops must extend over the waist; no skin may be exposed at the belly/ waist line; shirts may not be seethrough.”
The reason for the modesty? Teachers have told Briones-Moreno that “shoulders are distracting.”
But the student pointed out that how a young woman is dressed is sometimes inconsequential. She was once harassed in middle school by a group of boys when she was wearing “a giant Tshirt and jeans.”
Briones-Moreno is also frustrated that the way the dress code is enforced is inconsistent among body types. She describes herself as having a “curvier build.” She remembers an incident where she was stopped at the school’s front gates and “dress-coded.” She was asked to put on a sweater because she was slightly revealing her midriff. But a friend “with a slimmer build” who was standing next to her was wearing “almost a sports bra” and was not dress-coded.
A Middle Keys mother who wishes to remain anonymous told Keys Weekly that she is a high school parent who thinks the dress code “does put an unfair burden on the girls. It makes the boys’ comfort and education more important than the girls’ experience. And I think it is difficult for them to fairly enforce it. It tends to be a certain body type that gets singled out.”
Briones-Moreno said she’s getting support from teachers. She feels that a solution would be for respect to be taught in the curriculum starting from kindergarten — not just to boys but also to girls. She has seen girls shame each other for what they are wearing.
Her plan is to come back to the board and speak again — accompanied by friends — if she does not see any changes made.
“As a former principal, the dress code has guidelines for uniformity for all students,” said Amber Archer Acevedo in response to Briones-Moreno’s speech.
Archer Acevedo, the coordinator of community relations and a former Key West High School principal, said Briones-Moreno’s statements “are her opinion, not necessarily the reason for the dress code.”
In this screenshot from the Oct. 26 school board meeting, Key West High School senior Daniela Briones-Moreno makes a speech about the dress code. Ironically, the shirt she was wearing does not meet Key West High School’s standards.
FIGHTER SQUADRON VFC-111 IS KEY WEST’S HOME TEAM
THE SOUND AND THE POWER
MANDY MILES
mandy@keysweekly.com
We hear them more often than we see them, depending on weather and altitude, but their sound is always unmistakable, approaching like a rising wall of power and supersonic speed that, yes, interrupts the occasional phone call, but never fails to impress.
Sure, we all look up when we see the fighter jets cutting across the sky, independently or in pairs, their supersonic speed outrunning their sound. And after a few years of residency here, we all draft our own improvised, though perhaps less than accurate, version of what these planes and their pilots are doing in the blue sky above our island chain.
But what do we really know about the F-5 Tiger-II fighter jets and their pilots that are a permanent feature in Key West’s backyard at Boca Chica Field and Naval Air Station Key West?
“I’ve heard people say the craziest things about what we do here,” said Cmdr. Matt Pearce, public affairs officer for the resident adversary squadron at Naval Air Station Key West. “One person swore we were practicing dropping bombs. I swear that’s not the case. Never. Ever. Ever.”
VFC-111 is the home team around here. Except they play the bad guys.
As an adversary squadron, the pilots of VFC-111 are the instructors who play the enemy during crucial air-to-air combat training.
The squadron became known as the Sun Downers since its establishment in World War II, given its commitment to downing Japanese planes, identified by their giant red sun insignia.
But let’s be real, my fellow children of the ’80s. Most of us learned everything we know about “air combat maneuvering — dogfighting,” from the movie “Top Gun.”
To put it in terms we can understand, VFC111 are Viper and Jester, seasoned and expert pilots flying different, or dissimilar, aircraft than the aviators they are training.
The Keys Weekly recently caught up with Pearce, who gave a tour of the Boca Chica
The fleet of F-5 Tiger-II fighter jets is based at Naval Air Station Key West and used by adversary squadron VFC-111. MANDY MILES/Keys Weekly
airfield, the hangar, the “ready room” for pre- and post-flight briefings, and their classrooms, complete with those miniature models of jets attached to sticks that allow the pilots to twist, turn and invert, mimicking aerial maneuvers in a classroom before they’re in the air.
The VFC-111 instructors fly their F-5 Tiger-IIs against F-22s, F/A-18 Super Hornets, F-22 Raptors and other fighter jets from other squadrons that visit NASKW, usually for two weeks at a time, training with VFC-111 and taking advantage of Key West’s flight-friendly weather and conveniently located air space, said Pearce, who owns a home, and is raising his kids, in Key West.
I had every intention of conducting a professional interview with Pearce, taking notes and asking intelligent questions while zipping around the airfield at Boca Chica on a golf cart.
But then, something happens, and our “Top Gun” movie quotes kick in.
As surely as someone of our generation (there’s one in every crowd) will sing the name “Roxanne” in the same shrill voice as the Police song, someone else will make “Top Gun” references when touring a naval air station.
“There’s the requisite ‘Negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.’”
I won’t deny it. I was that guy a few weeks ago. Let’s just say my enthusiasm eclipsed my professional intentions.
Thankfully, Pearce was a patient instructor and an enthusiastic tour guide, eager to let the Keys community know who VFC-111 is and what they do in our backyard at Boca Chica.
For example, the pilots of VFC-111 this month have grown mustaches and are donating the money raised to fight prostate cancer.
Many of these guys live here. Most are reservists, no longer on active duty. While some have made Key West and the Lower Keys their permanent homes and get involved in the community, others commute from as far away as Salt Lake City, Utah to pursue their passion as fighter and train the next generation of young lions in the fleet, said CDR Derek “Baffle” Ashlock, commanding officer of VFC-111.
They just happen to have one of the coolest jobs on the planet. (Go ahead, you know you can’t resist. Start singing Kenny Loggins. “Revvin’ up your engine/ Listen to her howlin’ roar/ Metal under tension/ Beggin’ you to touch and go/ Highway to the danger zone….”)
Godspeed, guys, and thank you for your service.
Fighter pilot Matt ‘Yort’ Pearce is commander of the Key West-based adversary squadron VFC-111, which ‘plays the bad guys’ to train visiting fighter squadrons in air-to-air combat. MANDY MILES/Keys Weekly
One of the resident F-5 Tiger-II fighter jets takes off from NAS Key West’s Boca Chica Field during the last day of training before potential bad weather resulting from Tropical Storm Eta in November 2020. DANETTE BASO SILVERS/U.S. Navy
