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Celebrating the most inspiring and creative minds helping K-12 students in Northeast Florida, Jacksonville University and the Jacksonville Business Journal bestowed the annual Innovators in Education Awards at a luncheon on campus Thursday, May 5, featuring a keynote by JU alum and Florida Sen. Aaron Bean.
The honorees are helping shape an educational landscape that is crucial to improving the quality of life in the area, including its business sector, organizers said. The collaboration between the JBJ and JU in establishing the awards is designed to strengthen the partnership between Northeast Florida educational institutions, businesses and government. (See photo gallery below).
“We at Jacksonville University believe strongly in the innovative spirit of teachers, administrators and partners when it comes to premier quality K-12 education,” President Tim Cost said in describing the University’s commitment as event host and presenting sponsor. “It is in everyone’s best interest in the region to achieve that goal. We are pleased to honor their outstanding ideas, new approaches and relentless focus on outstanding – and improving – outcomes for students.”
Sen. Bean, Cost noted, has been a positive force in support of education, at all levels, including as an alum of Jacksonville University, during his time in public service.
“His commitment and dedication to outstanding higher education helped enable our University to create and fund the very successful Florida EPIC (Entrepreneurism, Policy, Innovation and Commerce) Program, helping hundreds of our students excel in important new interdisciplinary programs, especially in the sciences and new technologies.”
Cost pointed out that in the area of K-12 education, Sen. Bean and his wife, Abby, have recently helped establish an incentive fund for top teachers and top schools. In less than 18 months they have raised more than $250,000 and have disbursed more than $200,000 of it.
“They are truly leading the way in incentivizing and recognizing outstanding performance,” he said.
Here are the 2016 winners of the Innovators in Education Awards:
Education Awards
Lifetime Achievement
- Charles Zimmer, Episcopal School of Jacksonville
Individual
- Anna Jacobson, The Bolles School
- Gregory Broderick, Mayo Clinic
- Lakshmi Goel, University of North Florida
Collaborations
- The Parent Academy of Duval County Public Schools & Delores Weaver and Kim Ward
- Earn Up & JaxUSA Partnership
- The District Administrators Investing in the Lives of Youth (DAILY) & Duval County Public Schools
Military Champions
- Kathy Schofield, School Board of Clay County
- Peter Racine, Jacksonville Jaguars Foundation
- Sarah Sullivan, Florida Coastal Veterans Legal Collaborative
Schools
- The Bolles School
- Clay Hill Elementary School
Business Awards
Education Partnerships
- Jacksonville Symphony & Duval County Public Schools
- Vistakon & Englewood High School
- Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Florida
- Jacksonville Bar Associations’s Young Lawyers Section and D.W. Perkins Bar Association & Jacksonville Public Education Fund and Duval County Public Schools
- Jacksonville Sports Medicine Program & Duval County Public Schools
- Goodwill Industries of North Florida & Take Stock in Children
- NEFBA & Keiser University’s Jacksonville campus
- Nancy and Jeff Chartrand of the Chartrand Fund & Keto Porter of United Way of Northeast Florida & Colin Murphy of the Jacksonville Children’s Commission
- Monique Burr Foundation for Children
PHOTO GALLERY
