The Orange County Schools Board of Education met on March 10 to hear updates on Orange County School’s goals, staffing updates and an update on bonds.
What’s New?
- Jeff Koweek, the district's chief human resources officer presented the Strategic Plan Priority 3 Update to the board. The update focused on Orange County Schools' plan to support and retain high quality staff.
- Exemplary staff is one of the four priorities laid out as part of the Orange County Schools' 2021-2026 strategic plan.
- The overall retention rate for teachers for the 2023-2024 school year has not been published, but the district saw a small decline from the 2021-2022 school year to the 2022-2023 school year, from 81.9 percent to 80.4 percent, which was lower than the target of 83 percent.
- Koweek said the staff retention rate for teachers of color did increase from the 2022-2023 school year to 2023-2024 school year from 81.8 percent to 90.4 percent, according to unofficial OCS records.
- Koweek proposed three amendments to the staffing goals that would be in place by June 2026. These goal amendments include increasing the proficient teacher retention rate above the state average of 89.9 percent, implementing an annual OCS employee survey showing 90 percent of all employee subgroups find OCS a good place to work, and filling at least 90 percent of all vacancies within 60 days.
- "Every day [teachers are] doing incredible work, every minute of instructional time is important, but the school system is a lot more than just teachers, and we wanted to be able to reflect that in our goals as we finish out this strategic plan through 2026,” Koweek said.
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Board member Bonnie Hauser said she hears the question on representative proportionality of Black and Hispanic teachers loud and clear.
- "What parents have told me is — and this is black and Hispanic parents — that it's important for them to see, for their children to see leaders and people in their school that look like them,” she said.
- Additionally, Koweek presented staffing updates for Orange County Schools.
- Since the beginning of the school year, vacancies for classified staff declined from 20 to 12.5, according to the presentation.
- The district hired 245 new classified staff members in the 2024-2025 school year. The largest group was new substitutes, with 49 new hires since the fall of 2024.
- For certified staff, or licensed staff of OCS, there was no change in the vacancies.
- The number of National Board Certified Teachers has increased by 15 individuals since the fall with an additional 24 National Board Certifications in progress.
- "I think that's one of the big reasons we're getting more experienced teachers, because we support whatever your experiences, and I think that's a wonderful thing we do," board member Will Atherton said.
- Fredrick Davis, the district's chief operations officer, provided a Bond Update for the board following a previous facility assessment, feasibility study and community feedback for the board to take into account when allocating bonds.
- The community survey found that most participants favored renovation of current facilities over building a new school.
What’s next?
The Orange County Schools Board of Education will meet again on March 24.
