(5/2022) If you talk to any educator, you will be sure to hear that this year continues to be unlike any other. Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers, staff, and administrators faced constantly changing and ever-increasing demands in school buildings. With many schools at or over capacity, class sizes ballooning, and shifting expectations around grading, assessing, and testing to meet state/federal requirements, FCPS employees constantly adjust to meet the needs of their students. Once hailed as superheroes by parents who got a small peek into virtual classrooms during the pandemic - the tone directed toward teachers and educators is shifting. In a moment when fewer college graduates are pursuing teaching degrees, and educators are retiring and leaving classrooms at record rates, this shift is the very last thing we need to ensure our children have the best educational experience possible.

Every school district in our area - and across the country - is facing staffing shortages. To recruit and retain the best and the brightest into our classrooms, FCPS must be creative and responsive to employee concerns. We must start by looking at compensation - the FCPS pay scale is simply not competitive. A new teacher can take a job in any one of our surrounding counties for significantly higher pay. Mid-career educators can look at counties around us and decide there is a significant gap in pay that might compel them to leave FCPS. When looking at the pay scales for educators across Maryland, FCPS consistently ranks at the bottom for teacher pay. It is beyond time that we invest in our system in a way that supports and honors the people doing the work.

As an elected BOE member, I will take long-term action in the budget planning process to ensure that all FCPS employees from bus drivers to substitutes to food & nutrition services to classroom educators have full, comprehensive, and competitive salaries and benefits. Additionally, our educators should be recognized and celebrated for the knowledge, experience, and expertise they bring to our classrooms. We need to focus on building pathways to recruit and retain highly qualified, diverse employees into our system to meet the varied needs of our students - and focus on the daily work environment to retain our highly qualified staff. Compensation is just one factor. As a profession, there is an expectation that educators will simply do more with less. The Board needs to examine workload expectations and solutions. I would tackle this challenge in partnership with our educators. We need a platform to be able to sit together to discuss, brainstorm, and arrive at lasting solutions to reduce class sizes and increase planning time.

Finally, the Board and the community must make a commitment to respectful, engaged, and productive dialogue. Scenes such as the disruptions at the recent Family Life Advisory Council and the Board of Education meeting do not reflect the values of kindness, acceptance, and respect that I believe most Frederick County residents embrace. Accusations that teachers are utilizing new curriculum standards to indoctrinate students are misdirected and misinformed. While I hope that FCPS continues to offer increased transparency in communication and decision-making, I also believe that the ways in which we show up as a community must be in support of all students, educators, and staff. If not, we risk losing more educators and send a message to potential applicants that FCPS is not a safe, welcoming, productive place to teach, learn, and grow.