March 18, 2026
Small Steps, Big Impact: Future Educators Gain Hands-On Experience
Written by Student Writer: Delaney Laurence
Students in early childhood education have brought their creativity to the classroom. Students in Mrs. Tylers Early Childhood 1 class go to Inverness Primary School to help out in the classroom in the morning and have been very successful working with the Pre-K classrooms. While students in the Early Childhood 1 class have been successful in the elementary classroom, students in the Early Childhood 3 class have been working on developing lessons and activities for the before school program. With their creativity and first-hand experience students will be more prepared to take on a childhood related profession or their future careers.
Two Aspiring CRHS Students With a Purpose
Two aspiring students at Crystal River High School found a societal problem for teenagers across the world that they decided — must be addressed. Sarah Duncan (Biomedical Science Junior) and Kaitlyn Smith (Biomedical Science Senior) brought their minds together to make a difference, or as their motto goes “Be the change for a better tomorrow.”
Voices Against Violence is a student-run program aiming to advocate against teen dating violence and teach the public about the unknown, low-laying factors of teen domestic violence. According to the Center for Disease Control’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey in 2021, reported that 1 in 12 high school students experience physical dating violence and 1 in 10 experienced sexual dating violence. This is a statistic Sarah and Kaitlyn realized needed to change.
To learn about their program, you must learn about them individually first. Sarah Duncan is a junior in the Honors Biomedical Science program of the Academy of Health Careers, who has the dreams to pursue a career in medicine. Sarah is the founder of another program called Queens of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). The goal of her program is to educate and promote young women to the overall field of STEM. Sarah is avidly involved in pageants, and recently competed in the Miss Teen Florida Pageant. She has competed in a variety of Science Fairs, winning awards such as the Ronald J. Worthington Award for Scientific Excellence, because of her outstanding research.
Next up is Kaitlyn Smith. Kaitlyn is a senior in the Honors Biomedical Science pathway, which has built the path to her dream career as an Interventional Neurologist, which she will begin this fall at Fordham University in New York City, in which she was awarded over $200,000 in scholarships from the school alone. She was the Crystal River High School Golden Citrus Scholar for English Language Arts and World Languages. She also has her own program called The Citrus County Environmental Protection Plan.
These girls have a drive to make a change. If you would like to follow up on their activity within Voices Against Violence, make sure to follow their social media accounts linked below.