One of Miami-Dade’s 522 public schools, MAST Academy has a feature that sets it apart from the rest. Its location in Virginia Key, with the back of the school facing the Biscayne Bay, makes MAST’s mission of excellence as a maritime-focused school so much more profound.
Luckily for students, this distinctive location allows MAST to offer courses not found in many of the schools in Miami: Swimming I, II, and III and Water Sports. These courses, taught by Mr. Gomes and Ms. Hendrickson offer freshman through senior students the opportunity to obtain lifeguard and diving licenses, a chance to kayak in the Bay, and participation in various other water activities. One of the activities in particular, looked forward to by the instructors to check off an A in their gradebook, is the traditional Freshman Triathlon. This staple activity includes one mile of running, one of swimming, and lastly, one of kayaking. This year however, the triathlon was canceled for freshmen taking Swimming I the first semester. This came as a shock to many freshmen, who from the beginning of the semester, had been warned by older classmates about the dreaded triathlon day.
“The time that we wanted to do it the weather was very cold. …we had planned to do it early December…and the weather was not cooperating. [Also], there was one or two days that the sampling of [Dog Beach], we go by a certain website, [Florida Health], …the quality was poor, so we don’t go out,” Ms. Hendrickson said. Fortunately, the freshmen should have no worries about this cancelation affecting their grade as Ms. Hendrickson assures that “we grade every single day on participation.”
For many freshmen who spent their semester training for the triathlon, the cancellation was a relief.
“We’ve been running, we’ve been kayaking, and we swam. I’m happy it was canceled, I wasn’t ready for it,” freshman Trinidad Rodriguez-Loeches said. The freshmen taking Swimming I second semester will not be so lucky though, as Ms. Hendrickson assures that the Spring triathlon is still on.
