Alumni Name: Fabrice Telfort
Graduation Year: 2014
Current Position: Teacher and Coach
Fabrice Telfort is a 2014 graduate of River City Science Academy who was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and raised in Miami and Jacksonville. After graduating from RCSA Fabrice went on to study Applied Physiology and Kinesiology with a minor in African American Studies at the University of Florida, graduating Magna Cum Laude. During his time on campus, Fabrice was a Resident Assistant and joined various student organizations like Progressive Black Men, Inc. and Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. where he was able to grow through various leadership and community service opportunities. On top of his involvement Fabrice was able to gain experience in his field as a volunteer coach for the Gator’s football program. His commitment to the program earned him an opportunity to become a graduate assistant football coach at the University of Missouri while earning his Graduate degree in Positive Coaching & Athletic Leadership in December of 2023. After his experience working at these universities to interning with the Atlanta Falcons scouting department this past summer, Fabrice has decided to pursue his passion for learning, fitness and wellness by pursuing his PhD in Kinesiology in the near future. Currently Fabrice is teaching and coaching at Terry Parker High, dedicated to helping students reach their full potential.
In March, we invite you to join us for three special Iftar dinners open to the public. These events offer a chance to break fast together, engage in meaningful conversations, and learn more about the traditions and values of Ramadan. Hosted by community organizations, including 904ward, The Atlantic Institute, The Istanbul Center, and MOSH, each dinner provides a welcoming space to connect, reflect, and celebrate cultural togetherness.
Sign-up links are provided below—we hope to see you there!
We’re excited to announce that the RCSA Alumni Engagement Team is partnering with Jacksonville Young Professionals (JYP) to organize upcoming events for our alumni! Stay tuned—we’ll be announcing these events soon and look forward to bringing more opportunities for networking, growth, and connection.
We’re excited to highlight Celi Ellin Willis, RCSA Class of 2016, who is now part of the RCSA legacy in a new way—as a parent! Her daughter, Leena, is a kindergartener at RCSA Intracoastal, continuing the family’s connection to our school. Celi has built a successful career as a nurse at Mayo Clinic, and we couldn’t be prouder to see her thriving both professionally and as an RCSA parent.
We love seeing our alumni families grow!
Over the past few months, we’ve been busy reconnecting with our alumni! We visited Tallahassee, Gainesville, UNF, and JU, meeting with recent graduates and connecting them with older alumni who have attended the same colleges. These visits have been a great way to strengthen our alumni network and provide valuable insights to our newest college students.
We also had the opportunity to meet with alumni from our first graduating classes to discuss ways to improve and expand our alumni program. Their experiences and feedback are helping shape the future of RCSA Alumni Engagement.
Joshua Oglesby (RCSA Class of 2015) Throughout high school and even college, I had little idea of what I specifically wanted to do. I chose my major essentially because it was the same field my guidance counselor had studied, civil engineering. However, something that I did always know is that whatever I do, I wanted it to be something that made the world better, something that was positive for other people. There was a time I had the stereotypical aspirations to be a firefighter, a cop, or a soldier, but thanks to the fantastic teachers I've had, found I very much enjoyed doing technical things involving math, statistics, and data. After college, my first job interview was with City of Jacksonville Traffic Engineering, the division of the City government that installs and maintains the signs, pavement markings, and traffic signals. I was too inexperienced for the position, but I learned from that interview that the transportation engineering field may go well with my liking of working with data and my desire to leave a positive impact. A few months later, I got a call from someone at a company (Arcadis) I interned at in college asking me to apply for a job where I would be a consultant embedded within... City of Jacksonville Traffic Engineering. She had remembered me from my internship and thought I would be a fit. I applied, was hired, and on my first day at TE, I found a problem. Traffic Engineering receives many, many requests from citizens about traffic safety. People commonly complain of speeding on the road they live on, and Traffic Engineering had started a program of installing "traffic calming" on roads where speeding is causing a safety problem. Traffic calming generally means installing a physical element in the roadway that forces people to drive slower, such as speed humps (like a speed bump, but wider). The question I had was, how do you judge where there is a safety problem? You can't just install speed humps on every single road people complain about speeding on, as we'd run out of money instantly, so we should target the ones that really have a problem. I was not satisfied with the answer. The current procedure was to look up all the crashes that occurred on a roadway and use "engineering judgement" to decide whether traffic calming was needed. Reading the crash reports is a very good thing to do, but without more information it led to few traffic calming projects being done, because we had no real measure of what constituted a high number of crashes for a given road, and we were not proactively finding locations with problems. Simply looking at the number of crashes that have occurred on a road is missing a lot of contextual information. For example, if two roads have had 20 crashes in the last 5 years, but one of the roads is twice as long and has twice as much traffic, the shorter and less traveled road has a much higher rate of crashes per amount of vehicle travel, and therefore the more severe crash problem. Knowing that, I started working on improving the amount of information about a road we have when evaluating it. After much research and data acquisition, I produced a crash rate spreadsheet of all roads with traffic count data in the city. By taking into account the number of crashes (over a given time period), the traffic volume, and the length of each road, we now had a crash rate for each road. I also broke it down by individual crash types (ex. rear-ends, pedestrian crashes, left turn crashes, run-off-the-road crashes). Because we could now readily identify roads with high rates of crashes, we better knew where to investigate and then install solutions, including traffic calming. For example, Anniston Road, a curvy residential road used to cut between Beach Blvd and Atlantic Blvd, was identified for having a high rate of run-off-the-road crashes (~90th percentile), which are typically speeding related. We installed speed humps in 2022 and have since seen a 74% reduction in the rate of crashes. The worst year for Anniston was 2017, with 11 crashes. In 2024, we could only find record of one crash occurring, and it was likely DUI related. While I never had any expectation of ending up in the job I am in, I have
fulfilled my wish to making a positive impact on the world, giving me a sense of fulfillment and purpose. I would hope that everyone strives for that, in whatever they do.
12th Annual Florida STEM & Health Expo
The 12th Annual Florida STEM & Health Expo took place on February 8 at the RCSA Innovation campus, bringing together students, families, and the community for a day of hands-on learning and excitement. Attendees enjoyed interactive student presentations, vendor exhibits, autonomous vehicle rides, food trucks, bounce houses, and more! It was a fun-filled celebration of STEM, innovation, and discovery.
Join us next year for another exciting STEM & Health Expo!
Growing Together!
On December 10, 2024, RCSA Middle-High was buzzing with excitement as elected officials, community volunteers, students, staff, and parents came together to make a lasting impact!
Together, we planted 38 beautiful fruit trees, generously provided by the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, on our campus. But the growth doesn’t stop there! An additional 22 trees were distributed to enhance the landscapes of our other RCSA campuses and community gardens across Jacksonville.
This incredible event reflects the power of collaboration and our shared commitment to sustainability, education, and community building.
A big thank you to everyone who participated and made this day unforgettable!
Stay tuned as we continue to nurture these trees and watch our orchard—and our community—thrive.
Exciting Visit!
We were honored to welcome Tony Ricardo, the newly elected DCPS Board Member for District 1, to RCSA Middle-High for a school tour!
Tony took the time to explore our campus, meet our students, and engage with our dedicated staff. We're grateful for his interest in learning more about the innovative work happening here at River City Science Academy.
Looking forward to continued collaboration with our district to create even more opportunities for our students' growth and success!
Senior Night Recognition
On January 27, RCSA Middle-High’s seniors were honored as they played their last home game of the season. We hope they always cherish the memories made and the lessons learned—both on and off the court. We’re proud of you all!
Senior Players:
⭐ Tejeshwar Sankaranarayanan
⭐ Eldar Geydarov
⭐ Markel Payne
⭐ Carlito Smith
⭐ Myles Jones
Wishing you all the best in your next chapter!