Polls Will Be Open In:
MY PRIORITIES
EDUCATOR RETENTION
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In order for our students to succeed with their learning goals, we need good, qualified and dedicated educators. The first thing we need to attract and then retain educators is pay. Our board has worked on and supported a plan to help improve pay in our county. We have developed a multi year and multi step process to improve our salary scale. Year one was completed to the delight of many. Our goal is to continue to improve our salary scales. We know what we are doing is working some by the improvement in retention the last few years. Teaching is hard. Compensation matters. So does other things like providing mentors for new teachers. Our Mentors 360 program has been an amazing answer to a huge problem by providing support and resources to our new staff for not one but two years. In the last few years, I pushed for us to be able to serve a complete week of breakfast, lunch and dinner to our new teachers during their training week and supported moving up compensation for our newest staff members to Stafford County Schools. We have an everchanging population of students with growing needs. Maintaining current and relevant professional development for our educators is not only helpful for our students, but also for retaining educators. Growth is our number one problem in our county that affects so many of our county services. As a board, we have approved staffing standards to help with overcrowded classrooms. As we prepare to open 3 schools in a few short years to accomodate growth, we will need to set ourselves up to hire the educators we need by completing the improvements to our pay scales.
EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
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Stafford County has many programs to offer a wide variety of experiences for all of our students. However, I have felt for years we could do better with a group I have called the "invisible middle". Recently, our board has been approached and is still working through the idea of learning opportunities and pathways available to more students. I am excited to learn and explore more for our students. I love the implementation of Chart your Future for all senior students to learn more about enrollment opportunities in higher education; enlistment opportunities student may choose while serving and employment opportunities where our students can learn the skills they need for a career pathway that interests them and ways to earn those skills. At the end of the year we celebrate all of our graduates on Decision Day for whatever pathway feels right for them. Since I have been on the board, I have been a liason for CTE (Career and Technical Education) and have loved and learned so much about what we offer; the expansion of courses and opportunities and the successes of our students. In general, I would like to broaden the educational opportunities for ALL students.
SAFETY
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Always and in all ways, safety is a priority. Our students and staff need to feel safe and our facilities need to be safe in Stafford County Public Schools. Since I have been on the board we have worked through a security audit and made some enhancements in our schools. Our Sheriff's Department, under Sheriff Decatur, has worked lock and step with our schools to meet and exceed our safety needs. They have worked hard to help us secure properly trained SRO's and SPO's for our schools. We have additional security officers to help us serve our schools with top notch care. Our board, through the governance committee I helped establish, looks at and updates school board policies as a way of making sure we are good with discipline and policies that concern safety.
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Our aging infrastructure has needs that require us to have to look at air, water and general maintenance needs to keep our learning environments safe. With 150 million dollars in repairs and replacements needs in our schools, we need to take better steps to improve funding these needs. We need to make sure all of our facilities are safe learning environments.