After close to 35 years as an educator, Cimino Elementary Principal Joanne Griffiths retired at the end of the 2026 school year. In a true testament of love and gratitude, students and staff at the school celebrated her daily the last week of school with surprises that included everything from a school-wide flash mob to community service projects in her honor.
Griffiths began her career in 1985 in New York midway through the school year, taking over third grade for a teacher on leave. She taught at three schools in New York and then moved to Florida and began teaching in Hillsborough County in 1991 at Tampa Palms Elementary. Griffiths held the role of principal at two schools: Cahoon Elementary and Cimino Elementary.
One of Griffiths’ first goals as Cimino’s principal was to enrich the sense of community within the school by building on the concept of professional learning communities and to continue to be a significant part of the growing local community.
“When I came here, my goal was to take the good that I saw, all of the things that were the norms of Cimino and the community and enrich it,” Griffiths said.
Griffiths’ advice for new teachers is to find their purpose, find good people who have purpose and integrity to connect with and be a community with. For all teachers and administrators, she believes it is important to be reflective and continually evaluate ways to improve.
Anne Fiorita served as assistant principal with Griffiths and is the new Cimino principal. Fiorita said that the school wanted to honor Griffiths with events and actions that filled her heart and soul.
“Joanne understood the importance Cimino plays in the community and worked to preserve that. She helped plan the 20th year celebration to honor the legacy of Cimino while bringing her own legacy of the importance of good character and acts of kindness that will last into the next 20 years,” Fiorta said.
Except for a retirement party with staff, all the celebrations for Griffiths in the last week of school were a surprise. There was a schoolwide flash mob, surprise balloons throughout a day as part of Up, Up and Away Day, and Bloomingdale High School’s drumline played and had her as a guest drummer. Each grade surprised her by revealing that they had done a community service project in her honor. The community service projects included the ECHO Food Drive (kindergarten), Letters to the Troops (first grade), Thank You Book for Cimino’s ‘reading’ dog (second), Educators That Made a Difference (third), Pet Resource Drive (fourth) and A Kid’s Place Collection (fifth).
Griffiths said it was overwhelming and beautiful.
“Most people don’t get the opportunity to be shown such kindness. It just filled my heart. And so that was the gift. The real gift was giving me a moment to pause and take in the honor of serving the community and how the community felt about that,” said Griffiths.
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