The Flexible and Distance Learning Handbook outlines our plans for Flexible Learning while school is in session on-campus, and our plans should we need to move to all-school Distance Learning. The Return to School Plan is updated starting on page 14 with detailed SAGE safety procedures.

The plans and details outlined in PowerSchool are what we intend as of today, July 15. As an administration, we are ever-mindful of the events and circumstances outside of our control. We are watchful and aware and are prepared to make changes as appropriate to maintain the health and safety of our school community.

SCA knows you're busy! We'll get your back-to-school supply shopping done for you (binders, folders, dry erase markers, index cards, etc...) Purchase online early to clear it off your list and get the best prices. Prices will go up on July 1, and SCA Supply sales close August 7.

Balancing our goals of preserving community health and offering in-person, on-campus instruction for the 2020-2021 school year, Shorecrest will require all people, including students in grades K-12, to wear a mask while indoors on-campus. This policy is effective July 1.

The decision to cancel Summer Programs allows us time to strengthen our Return to School Plans and preserve our resources to ensure we may open as safely as possible when school resumes in-person, on-campus on August 19.

Chargers Athletics summer training/conditioning has been cleared by the FHSAA to begin on the Shorecrest campus on Monday, June 15. A required Summer Training Health form must be signed by the parent(s) of all student-athletes who will participate in summer training/conditioning. Tryout and season start dates for Cross Country, Swimming & Diving, Football, Volleyball, Golf, Sailing, and Cheerleading are posted. Access this information at shorecrest.org > Athletics > Teams & Schedules.

Families may request a consultation via phone, Zoom or email with The Learning Center at Shorecrest to help determine the best ways to support every learner this summer. Visit www.shorecrest.org/health for more information. 

Shorecrest Middle School held its annual Middle School Awards Assembly on Monday, May 18, via Zoom. Awards were presented for Citizen of the Year, Spark awards in each grade level, as well as the Harold Bruggeman Award.

This year’s theme for eighth grade English was "navigating authority." Students learned different ways of compiling various sources of authority and ultimately learned to make personal decisions after evaluating what their families said, what their communities said, and what their peers said.

Barry Bearden has been selected to lead the Shorecrest Physical Education Department and the boys’ basketball program as the varsity head coach. Coach Bearden, a native of Birmingham, Alabama, worked at The Altamont School in Birmingham for 15 years. As a former athlete, Coach Bearden was recruited as a football and basketball player.

Athletic awards by team for the 2019-20 school year may be found here. Congratulations Chargers on your great seasons!

During these difficult times, we want to say thank you to our community for your continued support to the Shorecrest Annual Fund during the 2019-20 school year. Without these funds, we would not have been able to support our teachers, families and students—especially during this period of Distance Learning. 

Shorecrest would like to welcome their new Varsity Cheer Coach, Blair Gil '07. In addition to being a 2007 graduate of Shorecrest, this past year Blair was the head coach of the Middle School Cheer Chargers. Prior to coaching at Shorecrest, Blair was the head Varsity Cheer coach at St. Pete Catholic for 4 years.

Middle School students had guest artists visiting via Zoom in April for Celebrate the Arts. Local writer and Shorecrest parent Maria Mora met with eighth graders for a special writing session she called "Flash Writing," Ms. Mora would show a photo on screen for about a minute, and have students free write what came to mind when they saw the image.

The Shorecrest Chargers Athletics Department hosted the 2020 Awards Ceremony on Friday, May 15 over Zoom during quarantine. This was a special time to honor many different achievements. We congratulate all of our Chargers student athletes for their dedication during a tumultuous but successful school year and give special acknowledgment to those students who earned an award.

Art instruction is interwoven throughout the Shorecrest curriculum. To celebrate the lessons and skills taught all year, we learn from the surrounding community each spring during Celebrate the Arts Week.

Shorecrest's Upper School hosted the 2020 Awards Ceremony on Friday, May 15, followed by the Athletics Awards and college athletics signing event over webinars during quarantine. This was a special time to honor many different achievements. We congratulate all of our students for their dedication during a tumultuous but successful school year and give special acknowledgment to those students who earned an award.

Distance Learning is challenging for students and parents. One of the most frequent recent requests to TLC has been for ideas and resources to help manage and organize working from home while schooling from home during the campus closure.

Nico Bottoni '21, Jonathan Currie '21, Gregory Glasscock '21, Zach Hahn '21 and Leddon Zwack '21 received first place at the state level of NHD for their documentary. They will virtually represent the school at the National contest in June. 
The fifth graders discovered that "The Candy Bomber" - as Halvorsen became known - was still alive and well. In fact, he will turn 100 in October! Students created birthday cards for Capt. Halvorsen in Google Slides and wrote letters to him about how he has inspired them and motivated them to think about others.

This year has been crazy, to say the least, but our Relay For Life event leadership team, our sponsors, faculty support, and all the teams participating have still managed to do exceptional things to help fight cancer! The Relay season was run by Chair Kirsten Price ‘21, Fundraising Chair Emery Camp ‘20, Relay Events Chair Lindsey Leonhirth ‘20, and Community Engagement Chair Lauren Epstien ‘21.

Shorecrest Chargers varsity softball and baseball teams finished off the 2020 spring season on Zoom with end-of-the-year parties and awards.

Summer programs are a tradition at Shorecrest. This year camps for the month of June will be hosted online and we hope to open the campus for more summer programs in July. 

You don't have to be a Shorecrest student - camps are open to the public! Some of our online camps are even run nationally!

Although the annual Volunteer Breakfast was canceled, there was still so much to celebrate! Visit https://www.shorecrest.org/sca for a special video, presentation of the Janet Root Volunteer of the Year Awards, and announcement of next year's SCA Board Officers.

Off season workouts, countless hours of in-season training, persistence and total team commitment all marked this year’s varsity soccer teams. Both teams excelled during the regular season while increasing their footprint in Florida high school soccer.

Middle School Chargers made chalk art at home with the theme: Earth Day 2020.

Illustrator Jon Hoefer had students create their own emojis during his Celebrate the Arts teach-in. He talked to them about different levels of emotions, such as drawing fear vs. horror vs. panic, and how to represent different levels of emotions in simple drawings like emojis. Hoefer demonstrated drawings of furrowed eyebrows, dilated pupils, cheeks spreading with broad smiles and more.

Following the study of World War I in American Experience/history class, eighth graders were asked to create a modern day propaganda poster, inspired by examples from American history. The Chargers' posters were meant to be about an issue that concerns them today. 

Shorecrest Athletics named Courtney Draper as new Head Volleyball Coach starting the 2020-2021 season. Coach Draper will also join the Shorecrest faculty as a Middle School Physical Education instructor. 

Shorecrest fifth grade math teacher, Mrs. Howell, and her kindergartener, Emma, spent a recent weekend sewing face masks for doctors and nurses at St. Anthony’s hospital. Mrs. Howell then worked the geometry of mask making into her fifth grade math curriculum.

Bring campus to your computer with Shorecrest Zoom backgrounds. Choose from multiple scenes. Simply download the backgrounds you like, then add them to your Zoom account. 

A recent presentation to help parents navigate PowerSchool Learning was videoed for anyone who missed it.

Shorecrest Middle School French students kept a French tradition alive virtually by drawing fish and emailing them to their friends.

Please see the attached calendar for the 2020-2021 school year. As we continuously evolve to meet the needs of students and families, there are a few changes that I hope you find beneficial.

Share your distance learning and community support stories on social media using #ShorecrestTogether. Email them to ebytes@shorecrest.org to be included in this year's Crestviews yearbook.

The Learning Center (TLC) is here to help you navigate your child's distance learning needs. We offer online resources for parents and students to assist with distance learning such as supporting your children with Executive Function Skills (organization, task initiation, planning, etc.) Please fill out this Google Survey to tell us what you are finding most challenging.

With many families preparing meals at home and trying to keep their children engaged, SAGE is prepared to help! We’ve developed a video series with easy, delicious recipes to prepare at home (pasta Primavera with marinara sauce!), instructions for various cooking techniques, nutritional guidance, and even home food sanitation and hygiene tips.

A bright side of studying at home is spending more time with furry friends! Pets can reduce stress, while increasing motivation and learning.

In fifth grade English class, students read “A Night Divided” by Jennifer A. Nielsen, about a family who wakes up one morning separated on either side of the Berlin Wall. At the 2020 Pinellas County National History Fair, an Upper School project won 2nd Place in the documentary category with a film entitled “Colonel Gail Halvorsen: Breaking Barriers during the Berlin Airlift.” The team was lucky enough to have a phone interview with Colonel Gail Halvorsen as a first hand resource! To add to the Middle School learning and resources, Jonathan Currie '21 and Gregory Glasscock '21 presented their project to the younger Chargers.

As Chargers face new growth and learning experiences through distance learning, expressions of appreciation combined with stories of how families are meeting the challenges of social distancing and self isolation are inspiring. Read more in this week's letter from the Headmaster, and find some great distance learning moments below.

Our daily lives have changed in ways that might have been unimaginable even a week ago. We are all feeling a wide range of emotions as a result of the changes in our lives due to COVID-19: anxiety, sadness, anger, loss, loneliness, frustration, maybe even irritation. These emotions are, of course, very normal human reactions to such an extraordinary circumstance. Furthermore, we know that children can be very influenced by the emotional states of the adults who are caring for them. With that in mind, we can help both ourselves and our children by identifying ways to manage our stress and build resiliency during these trying times.

The fifth grade Class of 2027 Music Performance was held in the Janet Root Theatre on March 12. The performance kicked off with a song entitled "Applause" by American composer Charles Strouse and was followed by another of Strouse's most memorable tunes "Tomorrow" from his hit musical "Annie." 

Chargers vs Archbishop Woods High School from Pennsylvania: Tie 3-3

Shorecrest Middle School students had a good time at their last Forensics Meet of the year.

This years's National History Day theme was Breaking Barriers in History. Congratulations to the following Shorecrest Upper School students who had a great showing at the Pinellas County History Fair...

The results are in! The National Geographic Society named Nicolas H., an eighth grader at Shorecrest Preparatory School, as one of the semifinalists eligible to compete in the 2020 National Geographic GeoBee State Competition for the fifth consecutive year.

Chargers vs. St. Martha’s Middle School

The second week of the tennis season saw the varsity teams play against tough teams from Bradenton Christian School (BCS) in Bradenton, and Jesuit High School (JHS boys) and the Academy of Holy Names (AHN girls) from Tampa, Florida. The BCS match was hosted at our home facility, the St. Pete Tennis Center, and the JHS/AHN match was hosted at the Hillsborough community college courts in Tampa.

Chargers vs Tampa Catholic (TC)

In the 2019-2020 school year, Shorecrest established a student exchange program for seventh and eighth graders with Colegio Ramon Y Cajal in Madrid, Spain. In October 2019, students from Spain visited Shorecrest. In February 2020, a group of six Shorecrest seventh and eighth grade students visited Spain and enjoyed a wonderful experience as exchange students. This program is not only enriching for the students who are directly involved, but it also adds richness to the Shorecrest community as a whole. Global learning experiences open students’ minds to new cultures.

Bravo to the 32 Middle School students who wowed the audience with their talents in the 13th Annual Middle School Variety Show performance on the evening of February 13, 2020. Organized by Middle School Music Teacher Mrs. McCarthy, the show is managed and run every year entirely by Jr. Thespians.

Shorecrest alumni and their Shorecrest students gathered in Charger Commons on Friday, February 28 for the Alumni Association's annual Legacy Breakfast. For nearly 70 current Shorecrest families, donning the green and gold is a family tradition!

Congratulations to our Varsity Girls Soccer Chargers on an extraordinary season! Today’s game was a hard-fought 0-4 loss in the rain to St. Johns Country Day team, State Champions for their 9th consecutive year.

The Varsity and JV Tennis Chargers started competitive match play with opening varsity matches for the boys and girls teams at Clearwater Central Catholic High School (CCC) and Admiral Farragut Academy for the boys. The match against CCC was played at McMullen tennis complex in Clearwater. This is the first year in our new district, and CCC may be our toughest competition in the district.

For the first time in Shorecrest history both Girls and Boys Varsity Chargers Soccer Teams advance to the State Championships! The girls' team will play St. Johns Country Day on Wednesday, February 26, at 1pm. The boys' game follows Thursday, February 27, also at 1pm. Both games at Spec Martin Memorial Stadium in DeLand, FL.

Approximately 4500 students attended the Florida State Jr. Thespian Festival at the Orlando Convention Center. Troupe 88197 brought home a total of 19 medals for 13 students from 9 acts! AND eighth grader Sofi R won Honorable Mention (2nd place) for her solo. But really the best part was every student truly did their best work and made Shorecrest proud!

Señora Miller's sixth graders had the opportunity to meet on Skype for 30 minutes with students from Colegios Ramón y Cajal in Madrid, Spain. Some of the students visited Shorecrest in Fall 2019.

Third graders have been creating and learning in tandem with other students of different grades and even a different country! Direct interaction between peers promotes active learning, critical thinking, and student engagement. 

SCA hosted Dr. Jasmine Reese and a panel of pediatric experts from Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital to talk about the most up-to-date medical findings on vaping and adolescent health.

Since every gift to the Annual Fund is an expression of gratitude to the teachers and administrators invested in your children, let's show them a little love this Valentine’s Day by making a gift of support!

Congratulations to the following seventh and eighth grade students moving on to the Pinellas County National History Day competition...

Middle School students achieved top results in Forensics competition. 29 Shorecrest Middle Schoolers participated in the event at Berkeley Prep on Wednesday, February 5.

The Box Tops for Education program has now gone digital! All you need to do is download the Box Tops for Education app, search for Shorecrest (easiest way to is search by zip code – 33703), and scan in your receipt that contains qualifying Box Tops products within 14 days of purchase. Remember to credit your child’s class by typing in your child’s teacher’s name under “credit.”

Eighth graders broke into teams and built underwater ROVs with PVC frames, custom motors, and controllers. Each team had a series of underwater challenges for their vehicle to complete. The challenges mimicked real underwater cleanup that ROVs are tasked with.

Beach Volleyball (NEW!) – Sign up was January 21. Tryouts begin on Tuesday, February 11.

Today’s Contributing Charger is Tom Richmond, a Lower School parent of Enzo ’28. He is a very active parent volunteer, this year’s Fall Festival Co-Chair, and a supporter of Two Funds. One Mission. Tom and his wife, Elizabeth, contribute to the Shorecrest community because they believe that investing their time and talent will help their child as well as current and future students of Shorecrest.

Grandparents & Special Friends Day is a beloved Shorecrest tradition, 36-years strong and counting. This year's event was held on Friday, January 24 and welcomed more than 600 visitors to campus!

St. Pete STEAMfest is an annual event geared toward children in preschool through middle school at Shorecrest Preparatory School. It is a family-friendly, community-wide celebration of all things creative, inventive, imaginative and fun! 

All financial aid applications for the 2020-2021 school year are due no later than January 31, 2020. To apply click here or contact the Admissions Office to learn more.

The girls Middle School basketball Chargers won the St. Petersburg Christian Saints Classic Tournament for the first time! The team beat Athenian Academy (32-9) on Friday, St. Rafael's (38-15) Saturday afternoon, then won a hard fought game later that night against Pinellas Prep (23-30)  for the championship.

Chargers vs Pinellas Prep Academy 2-0
Chargers vs Seffner Christian 4-0

Northeast Little League invites you to PLAY BALL! Registration is now open.

The National Geographic GeoBee was held in the Janet Root Theatre on January 16. The top two geographers from grades 4-8 competed on stage, plus last year's winner. The Shorecrest Champion was eighth grader Nicolas H. For the last four years he won at Shorecrest and also qualified to compete at the state level.

On Friday, January 17, the entire K-4th Grade Lower School participated in an empowering Children's March for Social Justice. Led by the Shorecrest third graders, the Lower School students paraded throughout campus to honor and recognize the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom we celebrate on January 20.

Lila and Brenton Ross, parents of Experiential and Lower School students, are grateful for Shorecrest and that their children love learning much as they do! The Ross family contributes to Two Funds. One Mission. because they experienced firsthand that Shorecrest is more than a school, it is a family, and they want to give back and support the people and children who make up the Shorecrest community.

On January 6, Sra. Miller's eighth grade Spanish students learned about Spanish folklore for Día de los Reyes Magos (Three Kings Day or Three Wise Men Day), which is a Spanish tradition that is marked by spectacular parades throughout Spain and Latin-America.

Before leaving for Winter Break, Shorecrest announced an End-of-Year Challenge. An anonymous donor family challenged the community to match and exceed their $70,000 philanthropic investment to the Transform Campaign. We rang in the new year by exceeding this challenge and raised $635,317! 

Are you or your friend interested in ES for a little one? Join us on either January 11 or February 8 to participate in a playful learning event planned for potential new students and parents. Families interested in enrolling a child in Alpha or JK for the 2020-2021 school year should contact Beth Mantooth bmantooth@shorecrest.org and/or Dr. Jean Spencer Carnes jcarnes@shorecrest.org for more information and to sign up for a time.