After hours of pointed arguments, emotional appeals and tense deliberation, the Santa Rosa County School Board voted April 22 to give district teachers a fully recurring 2% salary increase, ending months of failed negotiations and leaving union leaders relieved.

Every Santa Rosa County 4-H student who participated in a recent Panhandle Poultry Project show on March 28 walked away with a blue ribbon, with Ayla Foreman claiming the top honor of Grand Champion for her entry, Opal.

Salary negotiations between the Santa Rosa County School District and the Santa Rosa Professional Educators reached an impasse in March after three bargaining sessions failed to produce an agreement, with the union rejecting the district’s repeated offer of a one-time, non-recurring bonus in favor of a recurring salary increase.

A seventh grader from Avalon Middle School took home the top prize in this year’s Amazing Shake competition, impressing a panel of community and corporate judges with his poise, professionalism and a business pitch; walking away with $250, a crystal trophy and a vision of his future.

The Santa Rosa County School District has devised a temporary, cost-neutral transportation plan to help families navigate the split grade-level transition to Soundside High School, Superintendent Karen Barber told the school board April 2.

The Santa Rosa County School Board voted April 2 to table a proposed student ID card policy after members raised concerns about child safety, data security and the burden the cards could place on low-income families.

A new internal report by Northwest Florida State College obtained by the Crestview News Bulletin says the college improperly stored more than 170 pounds of live medications, including controlled substances such as morphine, fentanyl and a paralytic drug, in its School of Nursing building for an unknown period.

A teacher at Rhodes Elementary noticed something was wrong with a third grader — the child couldn’t see clearly. A school counselor tracked down the mother, who said she had already taken all three of her kids to the eye doctor. She had the prescriptions. She just didn’t have the money to fill them.

What was once a furniture showroom and later an overhead door supplier became something else entirely Tuesday: a hands-on career and technical education hub that Santa Rosa County School District leaders say has been 14 years in the making.

The Santa Rosa County School Board is set to consider an updated school choice plan for the 2026-27 school year at its Thursday meeting, a document outlining how families across the district’s roughly 31,000 students may request transfers and access alternative education options.