Home> Partner Success: Santa Rosa County Schools

Leveraging STEAM to Transform Teaching and Learning and Fuel Economic Development

Santa Rosa County Schools is a medium size, rural/suburban school district in the panhandle of Florida with 35 schools, serving over 26,000 students. As one of the highest performing districts in the state, that has been historically one of the lowest funded, Superintendent Tim Wyrosdick has a bold vision for leveraging STEAM to transform the culture of teaching and learning.

Santa Rosa Public Schools

Santa Rosa County Public Schools, FL

Watch this inspiring video to see first-hand how Santa Rosa County Schools STEAM INNOVATE is changing the lives of students and teachers every day.

Santa Rosa Public Schools, Florida

Goals

With a rapidly growing Title I student population and the district’s vision to be a world-class school system that ensures equitable access to instructional excellence for every student, every day, Santa Rosa County Schools partnered with Discovery Education to bring the below goals to life:

Accelerating student engagement and achievement
Fueling economic development and community engagement
Transforming the culture of teaching and learning
Maximizing investment in technology and human capital
Driving personalized learning within a student-centered learning environment

Solution

To bring this inspiring vision to life, Santa Rosa County Schools partnered with Discovery Education to build and execute a 5-year strategic initiative branded STEAM INNOVATE. The measurable, observable outcomes of STEAM INNOVATE in Santa Rosa County Schools are:

25 schools serving as the district’s STEAM models of innovation
100+ STEAM Innovators receiving intensive professional development and job-embedded coaching
100+ STEAM Innovators redelivering 21st-Century STEAM modules to their school-based peers
25+ administrators receiving customized administrative leadership professional development
4,000+ students using digital Techbooks in Math, Science and Social Studies
Ongoing community and business engagement opportunities

Impact

In 2016, Santa Rosa County Schools celebrated the completion of Year 1 INNOVATE and are seeing powerful results in student engagement, teacher capacity, and early indicators of increased student achievement. In addition to these early indicators, Santa Rosa County Schools is partnering with The University of West Florida who to conduct a comprehensive research and evaluation project to measure the quantitative and qualitative results of STEAM INNOVATE.

What People Are Saying

Educators

"I love the phrase 'Transforming Teaching & Learning' because that’s not something that is done one time or one week. It’s done every day, in every decision. Every opportunity you have everyday can affect learning in a positive manner. That’s transformation and that’s what makes Santa Rosa County successful."

Tim Wyrosdick
Superintendent
Santa Rosa County Schools

"We too often reimagine education in the image of politics, legislation, big-named global thinkers and other reactive elements in education today. But this STEAM transformation gives us an opportunity to reimagine learning in the image of our most valuable customers – our students."

Bill Emerson
Santa Rosa County Schools

"This STEAM transformation we are embarking upon infuses the joy back into education and thousands of students’ lives will be forever changed because of it. I can’t wait to get started!"

Karen Barber
Santa Rosa County Schools

"Our brand is all about equitable access to world-class instruction and moving our school system from good to great. What we are doing with STEAM is the most important transformative work we have ever done in this county. You won’t recognize our school district ﬁve years from now because of this work."

Mike Thorpe
Santa Rosa County Schools

Media & Press

Santa Rosa County School District Further Integrates Digital Content into Curriculum Through Expanded Partnership with Discovery Education

Discovery Communications | Read More

Santa Rosa schools host STEAM education retreat

Pensacola Today | Read More

Students can grow in STEAM with $2 mil grant

Santa Rosa Press Gazette | Read More

Santa Rosa schools moving full STEAM ahead

Pensacola News Journal | Watch Video