My Plan for OCPS

It is a tale as old as time - public schools see budget cuts every year. These cuts directly impact the community; teachers get bigger class sizes, campuses desperately need repairs, and our communities feel the impact of lower performing students. Orange County needs to find solutions to better use our funding. What is making families seek other schooling options, and how can we win them back to their neighborhood school? We need more teachers in the classroom to individualize learning. We can look into alternate energy to bring down facility costs for district buildings. We can use our resources more efficiently to save money and help keep courses consistent, updating only as necessary, not as corporate contracts change.

Parents and teachers must have mutual trust and respect to effectively pursue student success. This trust and respect is best developed through communication and community.

Holding all parties to a high standard of communication is crucial with student achievement. The Code of Civility must be emphasized in all communications so that we can maintain healthy and trustworthy relationships. In addition, parents and teachers alike must be available for discussions regarding student performance and classroom expectations.

Developing community with families and staff through school events and workshops will help strengthen relationships and introduce more positive experiences built on mutual trust and respect. Parent-Teacher Associations must be reinvigorated in order to bridge the gap between parent and teacher expectations. It takes a village…

Every student deserves to learn in their classroom. Every teacher should be able to teach in their classroom. Students cannot learn and teachers cannot teach in a disruptive environment. Inconsistent discipline decisions offer too much leniency for disruptive behaviors district-wide. We must establish clear expectations and consequences for all students so that everyone has a safer and more productive school day. Feeling safe and focused will lead to higher performance from students and teachers alike.

Typical teacher workloads, such as planning, teaching, and grading, are outlined in our contracts, and all are expected to be done within our contracted work hours. However, additional tasks, which are often inconsistent from school to school, are added annually by district leadership. In order to support additional district and administrative demands during the workday, teachers are forced to work outside of their contracted hours to complete the “typical” workloads of planning, grading, and documentation.

Unnecessary district walkthroughs, excessive testing and documentation, inconsistent technology changes, unnecessary meetings, unstable administrative changes, and lack of support with behavior concerns are just some of our major issues. These detract from student success, teachers’ ability to perform “typical” workloads, and waste time and resources that could be better spent elsewhere. In order refocus the teacher workload, OCPS must allow teachers autonomy in the classroom, have consistency with leadership, and expedited documentation processes to keep all staff and students safe.

With the help of our Classroom Teachers Association, our Orange County teachers have received historic pay increases in recent years, with a focus on boosting base pay for our new teachers and raises for effective and highly-effective rated educators. Unfortunately, this has resulted in “pay compression” for our veteran teachers. Over time, their salaries have decreased compared to professionals in other fields with similar experience. In order to retain the best educators, we should provide them the pay they deserve.