Southwood Middle School
Southwood Middle School Center for the Arts, more commonly known as Southwood Middle School, is a public secondary school located on 16301 Southwest 80th Avenue in Palmetto Bay, Florida. Its principal is Raul Garcia. The mascot for the school is the SuperStar, a cartoonish star who wears a top hat and carries a cane. History. The school was formerly located in the census-designated place of Cutler until the incorporation of Palmetto Bay on September 10, 2002. Southwood received national attention when, on February 3, 2004, 14-year-old Jaime Rodrigo Gough, an eighth-grader was stabbed  to death on campus by 14-year-old Michael Hernandez. Hernandez was tried as an adult, and sentenced to life in prison without parole and his sentence was upheld in a 2018 resentencing hearing. In April 2021, Hernandez collapsed at the Columbia Correctional Institution and died at the age of 31. Southwood now celebrates "Peace Week" during the first week of February as a memorial for the murder. Academics. During the 1984-85 school year, Southwood Jr. High School was recognized with the Blue Ribbon School Award of Excellence by the United States Department of Education, the highest award an  American school can receive. Southwood contains five magnet programs, for which students must audition and be accepted in order to take: Music (which contains the orchestra, band, and chorus strands), Photography, Theatre, Art, and Dance. Southwood takes in non-magnet students as well, who live within the designated area, but those students take regular electives instead of magnet classes. Magnet students do not have to live within this district in order to attend.