Cedric Mitchell - Assistant Principal Giunta MS Talks VIP Event via AlanAlfordSportsTalkShow.com

This is Alan from the Alan Alphas Forsyth Show, joined with Cedric Mitchell. He's a visionary, and he's going to tell us about his vision about this awesome event, the VIP Initiative event. So tell us about the passion to start this event, and what made you go ahead and come up with the idea. Absolutely. So, we do a panorama survey every year at our school, and the data showed that parents didn't feel comfortable coming to our school. So we wanted to do everything that we could possibly to make sure that parents are comfortable here to support their students. It's really all about literacy. We have vendors here donating hundreds of books, so we want to make sure that students' reading levels are increasing, parents feel comfortable, and obviously, we want our students to just succeed. Yeah, and you definitely show a big passion to help the kids out and the community out to make sure they get the best education. Talk about that passion, where it comes from. Wow. So, my older brother is an educator, and I kind of followed in his footsteps, and just working with kids, you see the process of them growing and developing and learning, and what greater joy to have than see someone, you know, reach their full potential. And definitely, you know, we just had, you know, Black History Month. One of the, as soon as I came in here, one of the persons in the front told me, hey, this is great that we have, you know, a predominantly black event. Talk about the community and the fact that they were able to help out. Absolutely. So, we have several community vendors from Progress Village. That's our neighbor. We have the Progress Village Foundation here. So, we have Progress Village Foundation here, and several other vendors that are here from this area, and we just wanted to invite them in to make them feel like they were a part of our community, letting them know that we're here to support them, and we definitely need their support as well, because when we all work together, that definitely impacts student learning. Yeah, definitely. You know, they got the PA system here, it's in a school environment. But yeah, the fact that the community was able to donate so much and support that way, talk about that support, Ulf. Wow. So, we have community vendors that donated bikes, hundreds of books. Like I said before, people from the community are just donating their most valuable resource, which is their time. They're here, and it's all about our kids, and they just want to pour into our kids to make sure that they're learning and growing. Yeah, that's definitely. And I can tell by the teachers here that how they're willing to help out as well, and they're giving their time, and they seem just as passionate as you. Talk about your staff and how they're helping out. So for my staff, we have about 50 teachers that volunteer their time on a Saturday, which is their day of rest, to come and support our students and our families. So it just makes my heart and my principal and my other assistants' hearts just overjoyed just to see them willing to come out and donate their time to give back to our kids. Yeah, and that's really special that, you know, the kids. What can parents also do to help support their kids to make sure when they come to an event like this or in the public, they're prepared? Absolutely. It goes to our initiative, our VIP initiative. We want parents to, first of all, be visible. Just being present in their child's life makes the difference. When parents show up for their kids, they know that someone is there holding them accountable. Parents also, back to the VIP, if parents are invested in their students' education, if they're passionate, positively passionate about their students' education, their students can feel that, and their desire to achieve just increases. And this event, you went through a lot, you know, sending me information, make sure everything is detailed. Talk about your planning ability. Yeah, so we've been planning this for about a year now. And we've met some awesome people along this journey. I had the opportunity to meet with Commissioner Gwen Myers, and just to have her support was absolutely amazing. I met Miss Tiffany Greenberry from ESPN. Just having her support was absolutely amazing. And just all of the wonderful people, Miss Clara Reynolds from the Crisis Center, just awesome people here in Tampa, people from the school district, our leaders in the school district, who was just here supporting me along the way, it was just awesome. And not only that, you have here a mental health counselor as well. Several mental health counselors. So it's really all about resiliency. If our students can show a level, a high level of resiliency, whenever they face any obstacle and they just keep pressing forward, and just keep desiring to learn, that helps our teachers to pour into them more and more. And I see you decked out in Bucs gear, talk about you being a Bucs fan and hopefully what happens with them. So it's Buccaneers all day for me. Love the Bucs. We didn't make it to the Super Bowl this year, but obviously next year is our year. They've made a few changes, and just looking forward to seeing them grow and prosper and do their very best next year. Yes, and with the Bucs, do you want to see Mike Evans possibly come back? Mike's my guy. Yes. We need Mike. We need Baker. We need all those guys, man. We love the Buccaneers, man, and yeah, definitely, we need Mike to be back. And Cedric, talk about, you know, the fact that your future goals, what you hope happens in the future beyond this VIP initiative. Wow. You know, this planning, this just has opened up so many opportunities for me. So obviously I'm an assistant principal now. I desire to be a principal one day and continue to just work in the community. So whatever I can do to help students to grow, to learn, that's what I want to do. I want to be there. I have a heart and a passion to see students grow and learn. That's awesome. I could see it today. Beautiful event. VIP initiative. If anybody wants to know more about you and connecting in the community, how can they reach you? Absolutely. Obviously, you can go to our website here at Juneton Middle School, and our email addresses are readily available to everyone. I'm cedric.mitchell. So just reach out to me, send me an email, and I will definitely follow up. Everyone in this room I reached out to, they followed up with me, and so many more. So many others wanted to be here. There's several other large events going on in Tampa, and to have this type of turnout and have this type of support is absolutely heartwarming. And they got great food here, too. Barbecue. Yes. We have Baton's Barbecue. Brian Baton from Baton's Barbecue is here. We have Massage by Educated Hands here performing hand and shoulder massages. Nothing but cake. So many people here. So many. And they're doing raffles, and they have the PA system. They even told me that it's time to go, you know, earlier when they get ready. So yeah, definitely, this is going to be a great community event. And is there anything else you want to say last words to the people who came out to support it? Definitely. I want to say thank you to my principal, Mr. Akeem Young, Ms. Heather Lynch, Dr. Heather Lynch, excuse me. She's my counterpart. She's the other assistant principal here. We have three other principals that show their support. Ms. Culpepper from Spoto, Ms. Grayson from Frost, and Ms. Erin Fialo from Ippolito. All of those teachers right here on the Falkenburg Strip show their support, and we just love them, and we're grateful for their support. We look forward to supporting them in their events as well. That's awesome. So from Allen for The Allen Alpensports Show, thank you for having us here, and it's going to be an awesome day. Thank you, Cedric, for your vision. Absolutely. God bless. You're welcome. Thank you. God bless.