Cindy Bootes grew up living on Air Force bases and was very fortunate to live ten years in Germany where she graduated high school. She then attended Flagler College in St. Augustine and earned her Bachelor’s degree in Education and then her Master’s degree in Special Education.

In 1989 she moved to Palm Bay to be closer to her parents who had retired in the area. She started teaching at University Park as a special education teacher in the K-3rd program. After working in an inclusion setting she was assigned a first grade position where she spent the rest of her 35 years of teaching.

Cindy is married to her husband Bob and they live in Malabar with their dog Schatzi. She has a daughter Emily who is a Graphic Designer in Orlando. She also has a stepson Nathan who is a Data Analyst and lives in Amsterdam in the Netherlands with his wife Deeksha. She loves traveling, reading, gardening, thrift shopping and camping.

Cindy has volunteered in many activities over the years at her church, school, and community. For five years she was involved in Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society as chair for the Survivor luncheon and instrumental in involving her school and colleagues.

Her passion in life has always been helping others especially children. She knows reading is the key to success in life and was fortunate to spend the majority of her career teaching children to read. She has been involved with Rolling Reader for the last twenty years having had the same reader until she retired in 2022. She also had a Rolling Reader tutor working with individual students. Cindy has now come full circle and is a Rolling Reader in Kindergarten at University Park. She is looking forward to being more involved with this wonderful program and continuing to encourage the importance of reading.