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Awards

Director’s Achievement & Great Gator

The Great Gator Award is passed along by associates at the Lastinger Center’s bi-annual All Associates Meeting (AAM) as an opportunity to recognize a colleague’s hard work. 

Quarter Ending

December 2022

Tim Mosunich and Fernando Franco Crespo have provided leadership to enhance the Flamingo Learning user experience. They have implemented an approach to “Bug Bashing” that ensures that new coursework materials are free of bugs and glitches, and they support users throughout their coursework to improve retention and mastery. The results of their work are evidenced in top-of-class Net Promoter Scores, which ranged from 72 in literacy to 90 in early learning in Q2, all above industry standards.

Quarter Ending

September 2022

Bryan Lutz, Luiz Franco Giovanini and Gabe Lipartito contributed to the extraordinary ongoing work to make sense of the New Worlds Reading Initiative data. Their efforts support our ability to verify eligibility and track outcomes of the growing program, which reached over 120,000 K-5 public school students in Florida during its first year of implementation. 

Quarter Ending

June 2022

In the 2021-2022 fiscal year, Brittany Gonzalez and Erica Lopez instituted policies and procedures to support a consistent employee experience during recruitment, hiring, onboarding and retention. Their efforts supported 30 new hires, 9 promotions and 18 part-time positions – for a total of 57 hires. Their contributions have had a significant impact on the Center’s 96% full-time employee retention rate.

Amanda Pate and Stephanie Snidarich led an extraordinary group of Literacy Matrix Navigators during the 2021-2022 academic year. They met regularly with the Navigators to ensure that over 1,300 teachers had the support they needed to complete the Literacy Matrix with mastery and receive their State of Florida Reading Endorsement. 

Quarter Ending

March 2022

The Massachusetts Flamingo Early Learning implementation team received the Q3 Director’s Achievement Award for improving Massachusetts Early Childcare Leaders’ facilitation skills. 

Quarter Ending

January 2022

Mary Bratsch-Hines and Donny Schrum pulled, cleaned, and processed data across multiple sources and systems to support OKR data. Their efforts helped the Center get closer to our goal of having access to regular data about our impact, scale, and sustainability to inform our decisions.

Nadeige King contributed to notable work in improving the efficiency of our payroll distribution system. The projected 20% drop in the amount of payroll we charge to our operating budget is estimated to save the Center $100K in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, which can now be redistributed to support the Center’s growth efforts in other productive ways.

AAM

Fall 2022

Robin Gregory was selected by Lori Gully for her tremendous efforts serving as New Worlds Reading’s Operations Manager. In this role, Robin created file structures for multiple organizations, coordinated new teams, drafted SOPs and held meetings with stakeholders – all while building relationships with colleagues around the Center.  

AAM

Spring 2022

Lori Gully was selected by Dayna Galganski for her work leading the Instructional Design and Development team. In this role, Lori oversaw the creation and refinement of the Center’s professional development content. She streamlined and elevated the process, creating even greater efficiency and working relationships within the team.