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SRQ DAILY Feb 29, 2016

Monday Business Edition

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Monday Business Edition

"We are mentors and active participants. We often work with investors, college professors or teachers who invent a product. They know people will pay them money and that a product works."

- Rita Ferrandino, ARC Capital Development
 

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[Film]  McDermott Raises Awareness for Selah, Sugar
Jacob Ogles, jacob.ogles@srqme.com

A fight against sex trafficking in Southwest Florida joins forces with a locally produced film effort led by Dylan McDermott. At a special event Saturday entitled “Sugar Meets Selah,” supporters of Selah Freedom came together with the makers of the upcoming Semkhor web series Sugar to raise awareness of both efforts, but all involved said this was just the beginning of an important partnership.

McDermott conceived of the Sugar series before learning of Selah’s work in the field. The narrative series will follow a girl who leaves home and becomes lured into an underworld of crime. He has been working on the project with Semkhor producer David Shapiro and worked with students at Ringling College of Art and Design to bring the content together. This weekend, he sat with Ringling students before the Selah event to discuss footage. After connecting with Selah, McDermott said he felt more confident than ever that this was the right place to shoot Sugar.

“Sarasota is a funny mix of light and dark,” McDermott said. “At first glance, it looks like a very wealthy community, a beach community. It’s this little Utopia here. But all of the sudden if you scratch a little deeper, you see a darker element involved.” This weekend, officials showed McDermott some of that element—massage parlors, parks with known trafficking activity, an underbelly kept well hidden beyond the popular resort town. Florida ranks third in the nation in terms of human trafficking, experts estimate, but that’s a ranking state leaders rarely boast about.

But leaders at Selah Freedom say the problem is finally getting some deserved attention. Law enforcement officials working with the organization have learned better how to identify predators seeking out runaway girls, a huge percentage of whom get approached by pimps within 48 hours of leaving home, according to Selah Freedom Founding President Elizabeth Fisher. “We have been working really hard on the streets doing what we do, trying to save girls,” she said. And as she worked to publicize the issue, she connected with Ringling College and with Shapiro at Semkhor, who in turn connected Selah Freedom with McDermott.

When Sugar is completed and released on the web, it will be supplemented with Selah content that tells the real-world story of sex trafficking. The effort should help raise financial resources and awareness for Selah along the way while informing an audience of a problem too often unnoticed by the general population. 

Photo by Wyatt Kostygan: Dylan McDermott meets with press at the "Selah Meets Sugar" event on Saturday.

Read more at SRQ Backlot

[Workforce]  Employing Vets and Disabled Workers

A State of Employment Study released by Goodwill Manasota shows the difficulty in recruiting and retaining both the disabled and veterans. SCOPE created infographics to showcase the results. 

Goodwill Manasota

[Education]  ARC Bridges to Future of Learning
Jacob Ogles, jacob.ogles@srqme.com

Innovations in the world of education mean growth opportunity for investors. While working in the traditional textbook industry, Rita Ferrandino saw opportunity for new resources and co-founded ARC Capital Development in 2003. Since then, the company has been involved with companies from Blackboard to Rosetta Stone. We spoke with Ferrandino about the future of education. 

How do you find companies worthy of investment?  When you are a private investment and advisory group, companies often find you. In addition, we are actively participating in innovation accelerator programs; the most prominent is LearnLaunch Institute in Boston, the premiere accelerator for education technology companies in the country. We are mentors and active participants. We often work with investors, entrepreneurs, college professors or teachers who invent a product. These early-stage companies know people will pay them money and their product works; they need a way to bridge their organizations into sustainable businesses.  

What’s the biggest change coming in the education business? This generation of new teachers entering the teaching field are digital natives, and all the students that are attending school are digital natives. That shift has happened. The mobile phone has helped that change. We used to worry about one-to-one computing. Now most high schoolers have a phone, and most middle schoolers. We worked on elementary science curriculum product using a science app, kids will go to a museum or to a park with a smartphone, and they can see a leaf and upload a leaf and be able to create a digital portfolio of what they see. The kinds of things you can do with a smartphone with education purpose is amazing. 

[Labor]  Sarasota School Compete Union Negotiation

An agreement on the 2015-2016 contract between the Sarasota County School District and the Sarasota Classified/Teachers Association was reached Friday. SC/TA negotiates for both instructional and support staff. Instructional staff is affected by the new laws tying pay to student performance. Instructional staff who were hired before July 1, 2009, remain on the current instructional grandfathered pay schedule. They may receive up to two steps on the pay schedule. Those who are eligible for one step will receive a 1.25-percent one-time supplement in addition to the step. Those who are not eligible for a step increase will receive a 2.5-percent one-time supplement. Instructional staff hired after 2009 will be placed on a new performance salary schedule and will receive a 2.5-percent supplement. Staff on the performance salary schedule also will receive a half-percent supplement for each year they have worked since 2011-2012 and were evaluated as highly-effective or effective. The starting salary for new teachers proposed in the agreement is $41,000. The current starting salary is $40,265.  

Sarasota County Schools

[Exec Moves]  Klein Joins NRT Southeast

Cara Klein has been hired as Luxury Markets manager for NRT Southeast. Klein will oversee the day-to-day operations of the Coldwell Banker Previews International marketing efforts. Klein was most recently the senior vice president for CK Communications and has worked with many high-profile companies throughout her career, including PGT Industries, Pella Windows and Novartis. Most notably, Klein’s branding initiatives to luxury home audiences at PGT helped result in their brand holding the nation’s number one position in the industry during her eight-year tenure with the company, officials said. 

Coldwell Banker Previews International

[Workforce]  Sarasota Leads FAFSA Completion

The Talent4Tomorrow Partnership announced Sarasota County is leading the state of Florida in the completion of the 2016 Free Application for Federal Student Aid, according to data through Feb. 12. Local efforts made by the Talent4Tomorrow Partnership has strongly contributed to a current FAFSA completion rate of 21.8 percent by Sarasota County high school seniors. This is an increase from 17.9 percent completion from the same timeframe in 2015. The Talent4Tomorrow Partnership has spent several months planning and executing FAFSA awareness and support activities, including FAFSA completion assistance during community- and school-based events.  

Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce

SRQ Media Group

SRQ DAILY is produced by SRQ | The Magazine. Note: The views and opinions expressed in the Saturday Perspectives Edition and in the Letters department of SRQ DAILY are those of the author(s) and do not imply endorsement by SRQ Media. Senior Editor Jacob Ogles edits the Saturday Perspective Edition, Letters and Guest Contributor columns.In the CocoTele department, SRQ DAILY is providing excerpts from news releases as a public service. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by SRQ DAILY. The views expressed by individuals are their own and their appearance in this section does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. For rates on SRQ DAILY banner advertising and sponsored content opportunities, please contact Ashley Ryan Cannon at 941-365-7702 x211 or via email

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