NOVEMBER 13, 2018 — Andrea Sloan was so disappointed in her school's end of year test scores in 2016 that she questioned whether Lee County Schools had made a mistake in hiring her to be the principal at Tramway Elementary.

“We had great year, we were plugging right along. Then the end of the year came and went. Everyone worked very hard,” Sloan told a gathering of students and educators on Tuesday morning at the Dennis A. Wicker Civic Center in Sanford. “But when proficiency and growth numbers came in, we were not satisfied. In fact, I would say I was devastated. Our overall proficiency had dropped. Our letter grade dropped. We didn't meet growth by a long shot. And it hurt. But not for long.”

Sloan, a former district Assistant Principal of the Year went on to describe to the gathering the many steps she and her administration at Tramway took to right the ship. And those steps worked, because Tuesday's gathering was in honor of Sloan, her faculty and her student body at Tramway Elementary, which was named the winner of this year's Head of Class award.

“I truly believe that we had and still have the talent on our campus in terms of staff and students to meet our goals every year,” Sloan continued. “We just had to structure our school for our teacher experts to let their leadership show through.”

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