Leon County Schools

08/13/2026

The first week of school is also the first week of student activities! Good luck to all of our student athletes taking the field for the first time this school year.

08/12/2026

A new school year is more than a fresh start. It’s a chance to decide who you want to become.

More inspired. More motivated. More mature.

The choices you make this year will shape who we can become next.

So, who will you choose to be?

Welcome to the 2027 school year...

08/11/2026

It’s here: 1️⃣ 𝘿𝘼𝙔 𝘁𝙤 𝙜𝙤‼ Tomorrow morning, there will be plenty of nerves, plenty of excitement and a lot of people walking into something new. Including the 𝗡𝗘𝗪 principal at James S. Rickards High School. But...there’s something you might not know about Maurice Stokes.

The next time you talk with him, listen to his voice carefully. Because he has a second voice you might not have heard before. Ask...and he might give you a demo. 🎤

Mr. Stokes loves to sing. Music has always been a part of his life. And if you put him behind a piano...his hands are right at home on the keyboard too. He plays, arranges music and, even though he’ll tell you he’s a bit shy...he loves to perform.

And apparently, his voice is pretty smooth. Just ask JSRHS TechCon Idris Smith. When Idris got married, Mr. Stokes sang at his wedding. (Idris is the one who told us just how beautiful his voice really is.)

When you know there is a beautiful voice and music talent in someone's heart, it seems like you see them in a different light. We weren't surprised that his former students at Riley Elementary connected to that part of him and they gave him a nickname: "Papa Bear.”

Mr. Stokes never planned on becoming an educator. His first dream was to become a clinical psychologist. He comes from a family of educators and people who chose lives of service, and that's how he ended up falling in love with educating students.

For most people, making big changes is in your life and career can become scary. But when we talk to Mr. Stokes, he said something that surprised us. "I embrace change, I welcome it. I've always been that way and I love taking on new challenges in life."

Tomorrow, he will swing open the doors of James S. Rickards High School for the first time as principal. One Nation _________ Nation.💙💛 So...if you’re a student, and you’ve got a few butterflies about tomorrow,...you’re not the only one starting something new. Papa Bear is, too. Okay? You got this!!

Wait...almost forgot this. We did learn one other thing about Mr. Stokes. In college, he came VERY CLOSE to getting a face tattoo. His words...“Wild times!” 😊

Here we go...𝗧𝗢𝗠𝗢𝗥𝗥𝗢𝗪 is the .

08/11/2026

08/11/2026

School zone speed enforcement resumes tomorrow, August 12.

Cameras will operate during active school zone hours. There will be no warning period, and full enforcement with $100 civil penalties will begin immediately.

This program is about protecting students and creating safer school zones. Slow down, stay focused and help us begin the school year safely.

08/11/2026

Leon County School Board begins at 6 PM tonight. On Facebook
https://facebook.com/LCSBoardMeetings and Channel 1095. View the agenda → https://go.boarddocs.com/fla/leon/Board.nsf/Public

08/10/2026

2 days to go...But for Michele Keltner, there’s another countdown happening too. 𝗢𝗡𝗘 year to go. This will be Michele’s final year as principal of DeSoto Trail Elementary School.

At the end of this school year, she’ll retire from a school that is much more than the place she goes to work every day. She calls it home.

And she means that literally and figuratively. Michele lives right across the street from DeSoto Trail. She officially became principal in March of 2008 and has spent so much of her life on campus... that when we interviewed her, she called it her “home away from home.”

“This is my work family. This is my family. ”

And after all these years, Michele is now seeing something pretty special. Children she once knew as DeSoto Trail students are coming back as parents and sending their own children to the same school. Michele believes they come back because they want their children to have the same experience they had.

So yeah…this 2 days to go sign means a little more this year. But before Michele Keltner became a Trailblazer, she had a completely different plan for her life. She wanted to become Dorothy Hamill. 😂 And we’re not exaggerating. Michele was obsessed with becoming a professional ice skater. She took skating lesson after skating lesson and even got the famous Dorothy Hamill haircut. Michele calls it her “bowl cut” and says her elementary school pictures were “atrocious.”

We disagree. What do you think? Do you see any Dorothy Hamill energy going on there?

Michele’s skating dreams came to an end in 1979 when her parents announced they were moving the family to Florida. In Michele’s words, they “killed my ice skating dream.” But Florida worked out pretty well for her.

She graduated from Florida State University in 1992 and started her LCS career as a substitute teacher. She was later hired at Fairview Middle School, and that’s also where another pretty important part of her life began.

During Secret Santa at Fairview, a fellow teacher named Andrew Keltner purposely pulled Michele’s name. Michele didn’t know it was him at first because her Secret Santa gifts kept mysteriously showing up in her office before school.

Apparently Andrew had a plan. And it worked.

Nearly 30 years later, Michele and Andrew are still together. And this year, they’ll finish their careers together too. Michele will retire from DeSoto Trail and Andrew will retire from Montford Middle School. They’re already looking forward to traveling the world together.

For Michele, though, retiring won’t mean saying goodbye to DeSoto Trail.

She’s been there long enough to remember thousands of Trailblazers as children and then meet them again as adults. She remembers the NASA trips, field days, special celebrations and even sitting on the roof dressed as an elf. And she says she still plans to volunteer and support the school after she retires.

“I’ll never say goodbye...I can't.”

Two days until our students come back.

One year to go for Michele Keltner.

And one last school year in a place she calls home. ❤️

08/09/2026

Leon County Schools presents: 𝗙𝗜𝗥𝗦𝗧 𝗗𝗔𝗬...𝗕𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗘𝗩𝗘 𝗜𝗧. .

08/09/2026

Gilchrist Elementary School Principal Dr. Lisa Mehr had one goal during high school. She was going to be an 𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗽𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘁. And if you know Lisa, you can just picture it. Put the captain’s hat and uniform on her and she’d look right at home in the cockpit. She even has that calm captain’s voice that makes you feel like everything is under control. ✈️

But toward the end of high school, one of her favorite teachers stepped in and encouraged her to pursue a career doing something she was really good at…math. Lisa listened and ended up going to college on the Chappie James Most Promising Teacher Scholarship. (𝘈𝘱𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵.)

This year marks Lisa’s 33rd year in education. She’s also a lifetime Florida resident, and once she puts down roots, she doesn’t move very often. Lisa grew up in Marathon in the Florida Keys and says there are only two places she’s ever called home: Marathon and .

Since coming to Tallahassee, she’s earned her bachelor’s, master’s, specialist and doctorate degrees, all from Florida State University. She later returned to as an adjunct professor in Educational Leadership. Lisa is a proud mom to three daughters and now has three grandchildren. And she also told us about a secret talent. She is double jointed. She said she didn’t have time to demonstrate it for us, so we’ll just have to take her word.

We’re glad that teacher in high school helped guide Lisa away from the cockpit and toward education. As former superintendent, Bill Montford used to say, “we’re very blessed” to have her as part of our family. ❤️