Contenders for Orange district chair share views
Four candidates are running for chair of the Orange County School Board, and each think their experiences make them best suited to help oversee the ninth-largest U.S. school district.
The four are vying to replace Bill Sublette, who’s been chair for eight years and isn’t seeking re-election. Sublette is the first one to hold a position that is unique in Florida.
In the state’s 66 other counties, school board members choose a chair from among their ranks. But in Orange, since 2010, the chair has been elected by voters countywide.
Orange’s chair has the same duties as its seven other school board members and earns the same pay (about $44,000 this past school year). But in a tie vote, the chair is the tiebreaker.
The chair works with the school superintendent to set the board’s agenda, though other board members have input, too. The board sets policy for a district that has more than 200,000 students, nearly 200 campuses and almost 20,000 employees.
Voters will select one of the four in the non-partisan primary Aug. 28. If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote, the two with the most votes move on to the Nov. 6 general election.
Here’s information about the candidates gathered from an Orlando Sentinel questionnaire, a forum sponsored by Parents for Public Education and a debate sponsored by the Tiger Bay Club. Candidates’ unedited questionnaire responses can be read here.
Who they are
Matthew J. Fitzpatrick
An educator for the past 25 years, Fitzpatrick, 50, is an assistant director at Orange Technical College, the Orange County school district branch that provides careereducation programs, GED classes and other job-focused courses.
He said his experience as a teacher, assistant principal and now district-level administrator gives him “valuable insight” that would help guide school board decisions. “One of the things we need is people who understand what’s happening on the front lines,” he said.
Fitzpatrick, who said he wants to bring “common sense back to the classroom,” touts his detailed ideas for improvement — including a 35-point plan he posted on Facebook — and notes he’d take a pay cut, if elected. Educators cannot serve on school boards in the district in which they work, so he’d have to resign if he wins and would earn school board pay rather than his higher administrator salary.
“I could just become principal, but I want the system to change,” he said. Teresa Jacobs
Currently Orange County’s mayor, Jacobs, 61, is prohibited from seeking another term in that office because of term limits. She has been mayor for eight years and previously served eight years on the Orange County Commission. She said she knows some think it’s odd she’s now seeking a job they view as a step down the political ladder. But she sees it differently.
“I am running for higher office,” she said at the forum.
She said her leadership experience will give her the credibility and the stature to push for changes in Tallahassee. “I have the ability to raise the public profile of education in our community,” she said.
Jacobs said she is good at listening, then using what she’s learned to make smart decisions. She would do the same as school board chair. “Public education is the most important thing we can do to make our community grow.” Robert Prater
An elementary school dean, Prater, 55, said his decade-long career as an educator will help him make the school district a better-run operation and one more in tune with teachers’ concerns. He now works at Oak Hill Elementary School in west Orange and said he is part of a nationwide movement of teachers running for office this year, fed up with low pay and education policies they view as harmful to kids.
“We need the point of view of an educator in the chairman’s seat,” he said.
At a debate sponsored by Tiger Bay — a political club whose event was held at the Country Club of Orlando — he acknowledged he was not well known among the county’s political elite.
“I may be the no-name candidate up here, and I know that, but I’m the one who is ready,” he said. Nancy Robbinson
Robbinson, 54, has been on the school board for 10 years, representing District 6, which includes Baldwin Park, College Park, Maitland, Pine Hills and Thornton Park. She said her constituents know she’s quick to answer their emails and phone calls and are happy with the school district’s successes, including an ongoing construction program that has replaced more than 100 older schools.
“I work well with people. I listen,” she added.
In a year when three school board members aren’t seeking re-election, and two are running for other offices, Robbinson said the board needs some experienced members who understand the large school district.
“It’s very complex. There’s lots of moving parts.” She is the most-qualified candidate, she said, to slide into the role of board chair. “I’m the right person who will be prepared to hit the ground running.”
Where they stand
All four candidates said they were frustrated by education policies dictated by Tallahassee and by what they view as limited funding for Florida’s public schools. All four listed school safety as a top priority, hardly a surprise in the wake of the Parkland school shootings in February.
But they did offer a few different ideas on how to boost security.
Fitzgerald said he wanted to see security guards on campus along with school police officers. Jacobs said she wants to use technology so campuses are safer but do not “look like prisons.” Prater favors a “call center” that would help district officials monitor feeds from on-campus cameras. Robbinson noted the district plans to spend more than $11 million on safety improvements in the coming year and has hired consultants to make sure security measures are up to date.
They all also said they would push for better state funding so they could pay teachers more and would work to improve teacher morale. None voiced support for a state law that has tied teacher pay and evaluations to student performance on tests. And all four said they want to see the district continue to expand and improve career and technical programs for students not heading to college.
How they differ
In public meetings, the four candidates have not disagreed on much, but they have highlighted different priorities. They have also raised very different amounts of money, with Robbinson reporting contributions of $138,400 as of July 20; Jacobs $93,530; Fitzpatrick $9,050; and Prater $6,653, according to the Orange County Supervisor of Elections.
Fitzpatrick said the school district too often pushes students into Advanced Placement classes, which may be too tough and may not match their interests, and he wants that practice to end.
He also said the district needs to stop micro-managing teachers. “The field of education is bleeding teachers,” he added, because too often “they are being robbed of their passion.”
And he said student discipline policies need to be changed, arguing administrators now feel like they should not suspend students. That has created a “manufactured facade of progress,” he said, when, in reality, campuses that aren’t as safe because students are getting away with bad behavior.
“What I’ve seen in last the eight years is a degrading of public education.” he added. “It’s concerning to me.”
Jacobs said she worries education is no longer a field young adults want to pursue, and that’s partly because of low pay. “You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your family’s whole quality of living in order to do something that used to be revered,” she said. “We’re going to have a crisis at some point.”
She said she wants to help re-establish “the culture of respect for the profession of teaching” and support teachers more “especially in the area of discipline in the classroom.”
The school district’s push for “equal access to technology” should continue, she added. This coming school year, all Orange middle and high school students will have school-issued laptops. The district is making “great strides in this area, and I will support continued investment,” Jacobs said.
Prater said the district needs more bilingual teachers to help students who are still learning English and more traditional vocational programs in its high schools.
The district and the state need to curtail the number of standardized tests students must take, he added.
“What we are sadly doing is developing another generation of test takers,” he said.
He’d also work to improve policies around student discipline. “You need an act of Congress to discipline a student right now.”
Finally, he said he wants to make sure teachers’ views are acknowledged and acted on, as they are in the best position to guide a school district. “Teachers are becoming increasingly discouraged.” Robbinson said she would like to expand preschool offerings “to our most vulnerable children” and to increase magnet and other specialized programs that families could pick based on student interest.
From her decade on the board, the district has many achievements it can be proud of, she said, including a rising graduation rate, a successful construction program and residents’ repeated approval of local tax increases to help public schools. “We’ve had an incredible run,” she said.
But the district, she said, needs to work to reduce teacher workloads, which would help boost faculty morale. She wants to “give them back some of the creativity and autonomy in their classroom.”
Robbinson added, “I want to hear from the teachers on what they want us do.”