When four of the five members of the county’s School Board voted in October to give Superintendent David Moore a 22-percent pay raise, they did so because they believed he did the job better than anyone else in the state.

Turns out, they weren’t the only ones that held him in such high esteem.

Moore, who was hired five years ago, was named the 2025 Florida Superintendent of the Year at a joint meeting of the Florida Association of District Schools Superintendents and Florida School Board Association last week in Tampa.

He became the first superintendent from this county to receive the award.

“While this is an individual award, it also reflects a shared vision and unrelenting commitment to our students embraced by the entire community, and it recognizes the hard work and dedication of our support staff, principals and teachers,” Moore said in a telephone interview after receiving the honor during a ceremony last Wednesday.

“People here were willing to say, ‘Let’s look at how we teach kids and see if we can find ways to do it better,’ and that’s what we did,” he added. “Together, we have transformed our schools into some of the best in the state. This wouldn’t have been possible without the community’s support.

“That’s what makes this so special.”

Since Moore took the reins in November 2019, the county’s school system has undergone a spectacular metamorphosis – blossoming from an underachieving, poorly run and financially mismanaged district into the envy of the state.

Not only has Moore’s leadership produced back-to-back “A” grades from the Florida Department of Education and lifted the district to a top-10 state ranking, but he also cleaned up the financial mess left behind by his predecessor, Mark Rendell, and noticeably improved employee morale.

The unprecedented year-after-year gains in student performance have made the district the most-improved among the 67 in the state over the past three years.

The percentage of “A” and “B” public schools here has doubled – from 47 percent to 95 percent – and for the first time in 10 years, the county is home to a state-designated “Academically High-Performing School District.”

Those remarkable results have caught the attention of educators from around the state and across the nation. Throughout the school year, they can be seen visiting local schools, seeking to tap into Moore’s wisdom and copy his strategies in hopes of creating the same culture of innovation, high expectations and success in their districts.

In fact, Moore was also recognized in Tampa by the Consortium of Florida Education Foundations for his efforts to engage with local business and philanthropic leaders to create the Indian River Education Fund, which encourages and enables the private sector to make intellectual and financial investments in the district.

Marine Bank President Bill Penney, chairman of the newly formed fund’s board, called Moore a “game changer for our public schools,” adding, “For the first time in decades, we have a school system that mirrors the quality of all our other institutions and the quality of this community.”