Students from Lawton Chiles Middle School won 1st place in the 2021 - 2022 SECME Festival and Olympiad Bridge competition held remotely by Miami-Dade County Public Schools on Jan. 29.      The winners shown above are, from left: Kennedy Granville and Agustin Betancourt, both in seventh grade and Amerie Cummings, eighth grade at the school, at 8190 NW 197th St. in Miami.      The students...

     The Miami-Dade County Public Schools Board welcomed new Supt. Jose L. Dotres on Feb. 14.      The board hired Dotres on Jan. 24. He began his career in county schools where he advanced to principal and administrative positions.      Dotres also was a chief academic officer in Broward County Public Schools overseeing funding for Title I and Head Start, and for nine months, deputy...

     The TD Ready Challenge awarded a $1 million grant to The Education Fund, a non-profit in Miami Lakes which supports public school teachers and students in Miami-Dade County.      The Education Fund said it will put the money toward creating a new math curriculum to be taught at 51 elementary schools in the county that use food forests and gardens to teach science and provide vegetables to students and...

     Students from the Bob Graham Education Center impressed judges during winter robotics competitions.       The Miami Lakes school has six robotics teams and many of the middle school students are new to the world of robotics contests said Marilyn Dieppa, the school’s STEM teacher and team coach.       Three of the teams took home awards this season, ahead of the state...

      The Miami Lakes Food & Wine Festival proved to be the successful charitable event that co-founders Lynn Matos and Giuseppe Zuozo had hoped for on Feb. 5.       “All of our restaurants, all of our wine people [it’s] just a pouring of support for the community,” Matos said.       The event sold out -- 1,000 tickets in 10 days -- without advertising and drew...