“Viewpoints” is a place on Chapelboro where local people are encouraged to share their unique perspectives on issues affecting our community. If you’d like to contribute a column on an issue you’re concerned about, interesting happenings around town, reflections on local life — or anything else — send a submission to viewpoints@wchl.com.

Primary Will Determine the Future for Orange County Students

A perspective from Carrie Doyle

 

In the upcoming May election, four of the seven seats are up for the Orange County Schools Board of Education; this election will determine whether or not our district continues in a progressive and equity-centered direction.

OCS has protected safe spaces for in-person learning these past two pandemic years. Board meetings have frequently featured health experts from the Orange County Health Department and the ABC Science Collaborative to guide our decision-making for a safe return to schools in SY2020-21, and for safely keeping our classrooms open throughout SY2021-22.  To date, our district has not had to re-close a single classroom, school, or bus.

Within the broader goal of supporting our diverse student population and their families, OCS has drastically increased our language and translation services. Our Communications team launched multi-lingual Parent Academies, teaching families how to use Powerschool, complete FAFSA forms, and even providing computer classes for adults. For the first time, the district provided regular Karen and Burmese language translation to serve the growing refugee community in Orange County. We now have at least one bilingual staff member in all our front offices so that everyone feels welcomed entering our schools. We’ve also hired school-based family liaisons to help all families overcome barriers to the school environment.

In the middle of the pandemic, our district’s previous Strategic Plan sunsetted; this spring, we launched a 5 Year Strategic Plan with an interwoven Equity Plan. Beginning in the Spring of 2020, we hosted various forums for input from teachers, staff, students, and community members to shape the values and vision of our new 5 Year Plan. For the first time ever, our district designed an interwoven Equity Plan with our Strategic Plan; last week, we hosted local Electeds for a launch of the Plan at Central Elementary School. Currently, district staff and Board members are determining which metrics to monitor over the coming school year to track progress for those plans.

We are currently addressing head-on and with transparency several long-standing and deep-rooted problems in our district:

  • Literacy: Reading proficiency had stagnated or declined by School Year 2017-18. As we hired TNTP to audit K-12 literacy curricula across the district, we began implementing researched-based curriculum supporting the Science of Reading. TNTP’s examination of student work found the new SOR approaches in the early grades improved instruction and learning; new curriculum is needed in some upper grades so that students have consistent access to grade-level content.
  • Equity: Surveys of students and staff suggest a long road for the creation of truly equitable school environments that foster a sense of belonging for all. Millennium Learning Concept’s audit found that while our Equity Policy, Equity Department, and school-level equity leaders are pillars of an equitable school community, we yet have only islands of excellence district wide. Better training and communication of expectations would deepen a culture of equity, as well as support administrators, teachers, and students doing the work.
  • Classified Salary scales: The HIL audit determined that salary compression for Classified Staff worsened over the past decade; this compression has demoralized staff and caused us to lose staff to neighboring districts, county government, and the private sector. Our upcoming local budget request to the Commissioners addresses the financial need our district has to meet this demand. Nevertheless, we have recently funded first steps towards undoing that compression for Classified Staff. We also recently approved funding to recognize years of experience of certified staff; the district’s previous practice was to only recognize years in OCS itself. Also, just before the pandemic took place, we overhauled our salary schedule for bus drivers and transportation workers; we continue to uphold competitive salaries for those workers, who with Child Nutrition were the backbone of feeding families throughout pandemic summers as well as getting our students safely to schools.

To sum up: OCS has worked overtime to not just come out of the pandemic safely, but to come out with: broader support for our diverse community; better educational programming for our students; recognition of the need to better compensate our hard-working staff. Our schools need to continue the direction taken by our district leadership over recent years. Our students need opportunities to succeed in a setting that supports them—all of them. Likewise, our teachers and staff need salaries that reflect their efforts and excellence.

Only a couple of the OCS board candidates express the intention of continuing the forward-looking, difficult work that is well under way. In our small North Carolina district, we are gaining momentum on these critical issues because of personal commitment by members of our board, staff, and students—holding us to the vision of an excellent and equitable community for our kids. Please vote to continue the work.

Carrie Doyle serves on the Orange County school board and is not currently running for reelection. This piece reflects her personal opinion and not the opinion of the OCS Board of Education


“Viewpoints” on Chapelboro is a recurring series of community-submitted opinion columns. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work or reporting of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.