Jose Marti MAST Academy 6-12 announced that 18 graduates from the class of 2016 were awarded Florida Bright Futures Scholarships. The Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program establishes three lottery-funded scholarships to reward Florida high school graduates for high academic achievement. There are two kinds of scholarships: the Florida Academic Scholars (FAS) and the Florida Medallion Scholars (FMS).
Jonathon Milian, JMMA’s Cap Advisor said “We received a record number of students who qualified for Bright Futures in our short history. From our 44 graduates, 18 of them received the Florida’s Bright Futures Scholarship. That’s a huge accomplishment!”
Additionally, the school is looking forward to the 2016-2017 school year where innovative courses and programs that enable students to master useful skills and more elective courses will be added to the existing selection of classes. Among the new classes are a middle and high school computer science program taught by an industry certified computer science teacher. The high school selection will include AP Art History, AP Research, additional forensic and anatomy classes, botany, drama and creative writing.
Computer science fuels technological innovation and drives career growth, but waiting until college to learn the basics could mean a missed opportunity. The school has a strong partnership with Cisco Systems and through this partnership, high school students received tablets purchased by Cisco and participated in a HI-TEC national conference held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Downtown Miami.
During this conference students were able to uniquely explore the convergence of scientific disciplines and technologies. The computer science class visited the HI-TEC (Hispanic IT Executive Conference) earlier this year. The students listened to Hispanic executives describe their career paths in information technology, aerospace, and telecom companies. There was also a panel discussion on the benefits and challenges of digitization in emerging economies, specifically in Latin America.
Middle school and high school students also participated in Project Lead the Way, in which the curriculum included a visit to the Cisco headquarters building in Doral. The students were also able to go through the application making process of teleconferencing and put to use virtual reality technology when meeting CEOs and CIOs in San Francisco. An innovative year awaits the Jose Marti Silver Knights.