The local school districts are not far from welcoming students back to classes, with the first day of instruction approaching on Monday, Aug. 25.
Orange County Schools launched a new way to help families and students prepare for the school year this past weekend, hosting its first Back to School Fair at Orange High School. To discuss the event — and other preparations happening at the district level — Superintendent Danielle Jones joined 97.9 The Hill’s Brighton McConnell on the air Aug. 13. She detailed some of the main priorities her central office and staff will be focused on in 2025-26, as well as tips for OCS families to keep in mind gearing up for the first day of school.
Below is a transcript of Jones’ conversation with McConnell, which has been shortened from the full segment and lightly edited for clarity.
Brighton McConnell: What are some key things that you’re envisioning that your administration will be kind of tackling in this upcoming academic year? Whether it’s some goals with a renewed focus and some urgency around them, or whether there are some new ones you’re adding to your administration’s priorities?
Danielle Jones: We are highly focused on making sure we’re providing relevant and meaningful professional development for our educators. We’re kicking that off with our Orange County School Stars of Education Conference that’s happening on Aug. 18. We’ll have sessions there for everyone, from classroom teachers to instructional coaches and support staff…everyone in our district can participate in that, we’re so excited about that. And then we’ll also be offering continuous professional development throughout the school year.
The other thing we’re focused on is making sure we are meeting the individual needs of students. We are dedicated to supporting every child every day by providing individualized support. And so for the last year and a half, we worked on establishing protocols to support our students academically. We’re also working on increasing access to mental health and social emotional support and making a conscious effort to increase awareness of our programming options. We know that there is something here for everyone and every student has a right to access those opportunities and receive support to ensure they’re successful. And some of those include advanced academics and career technical education programs. Many people don’t know, but we have over 20 career pathways in areas like agriculture, computer science, and information technology and health sciences. Our Career and College Promise program allows students to take college courses for free and earn up to an associate’s degree. So, we want to make sure our families are aware that those programs are available to them.
And lastly, we’re just excited about celebrating our successes and beginning the planning process to ensure we continue to improve. We have wonderful educators in Orange County Schools and I’m excited to celebrate with them once our academic results are announced in September…because we are in the business of academic improvement and continuous improvement. We’ll begin a year-long process, this school year, of engaging our community to establish a new strategic plan priorities. Those priorities will help us to align our focus, work to support our students, ensure that we’re all utilizing best practices and support our educators to serve our students and families over the next five years.
McConnell: I’m sure people that will perk some ears up because anytime something like that — a big planning effort, a big visioning effort — is being put together. A lot of folks are going to want to make sure that their feedback is heard. What is it that you kind of have in mind already for getting folks feedback and opinions?
Jones: Yeah, right now we’re in the planning process. We will have some community outreach and some individual convenings for each priority, and [will] make sure that some of our community partners are there and the wider community is able to participate as well. We’re very excited about creating some teams, getting that input and seeing what the community would like to see for Orange County Schools.
McConnell: You mentioned making sure students have access to resources and mental health services. Of course that’s very important as school is in session, but our region also suffered the major flooding from Tropical Depression Chantal. I’m curious what you have heard, superintendent, from your principals, teachers, any families around the school district about how they were impacted. And when we’re talking about people being in the recovery process at this point, are there any school-specific resources that make sense for people to keep in mind?
Jones: So, we’re always here to support our students and their families. I haven’t heard specifically about any students, or their families, that were directly impacted. However, if there are some and they do require resources, I would just ask that they reach out to their schools and our student support services team will be more than happy to provide them with resources — or direct them where they can obtain those.
McConnell: The Back to School Fair is coming up and that is the first of its kind for Orange County Schools. I’m curious, Dr. Jones, how did this idea for an event come about to do a in-person Back to School Fair as a one-stop shop for people to get details on getting back to school?
Jones: Yeah, we’re very excited, this is our first annual Back to School Fair. Part of this came out of last year when we went through some of our family engagement sessions and realized there’s a lot of information that people just don’t know. That there are a lot of programs in Orange County Schools that our families have access to and [we want them to] understand the support available to them for their students to be successful as they matriculate kindergarten through 12th grade. It should be a great event for families. They’re going to learn about all things Orange County schools. We’re going to talk a little bit about advanced academics, afterschool care, athletics, attendance, bus transportation, school nutrition services, mental health support that’s available. We’re going to provide translation and interpretation services for families that come out that are in need of that.
We really want to continuously engage with our community, right? And we want to be a family. One thing about Orange County Schools is it’s a close-knit community and every time I talk to someone, they know someone else within the district or they’re related. We just really want to bring all of that together so that we can meet their needs and they can hear directly from us what expectations are and what supports are available. It’s all in an effort to make sure we work together to ensure the success of our students and to make sure that once they graduate from high school, that they’re able to graduate with options so that they can be successful post-graduation.
McConnell: What else should families and students kind of keep in mind as we’re getting back into the traditional school routine here in a couple weeks?
Jones: I just ask families to make sure they check out the [Back to School online guide]. Pay close attention to transportation if you need transportation services. And any support that you need or any questions that you have, please reach out to the schools directly….we’ll be more than happy to to help you. We also have open house that is coming up for all grade levels on Aug. 21. Those are also posted on our website, and you should also find those on school sites. We’re ready for families to come back, and we’re ready to get students rocking and rolling back in this school year.
Featured photo via Orange County Schools.
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