Elementary teacher Brittany Duquaine was honored earlier this year by Gov. Ron DeSantis during a 2022 State of the State Address for her outstanding student success during the tumultuous times of the pandemic.
Duquaine dreamt about being a teacher from an early young age. Now, she and her colleagues have been recognized for turning around Lakewood Elementary School in St. Petersburg, one of the most underperformed schools in the state, into grade A students in the last two years.
Because of the learning foundation that earlier grades give, failure in elementary school courses may highly impact children to success in upper-level studies. According to a Stanford University study, “Overall, students’ reading fluency in second and third grade is now approximately 30 percent behind what would be expected in a typical year.”
Lakewood Elementary was one of the schools featured in the Pulitzer Prize-finalist series “Failure Factories,” which found that Pinellas County School Board’s decision in 2007 to end integration created a snowball effect of bad consequences for the neediest educational institutions.
The board defended its decision initially by promising improvement in the education of poor Black neighborhoods and increasing their funding. But the promises never happened. Instead, five schools, the most segregated in the state, ended up having the worst test scores in the county. Lakewood Elementary was one of them.
Now, thanks to the tireless efforts of Duquaine and other teachers, kids in Lakewood are showing admirable in-person participation and A grades regardless of the pandemic challenges they came across.
The governor also presented Pinellas educators with $1,000 disaster-relief bonuses for their hard work. The event was hosted in Lakewood, where DeSantis handed the check in person.
“It was an honor. I’ve never been to an event like that,” said Duquaine. She had told her students “you’re doing so good, like people are going to notice.”
Credits
Reporter/Anchor/Producer: Rolynn Wilson
Show Editor: Alice Barlow
Web Producer: Carla Ibanez
