POLICIES

Us Wicomico County residents deserve better. There seems to be a disconnect between the board and the desires of teachers, parents, and, most importantly, students. That needs to end. It is time to refresh our board with new ideas. With a bold policy plan, we can ensure that students can be better prepared to compete in the 21st Century economy. These are just some things we can do:

Make Mental Health a Priority

Hire more school psychologists and social workers to reach the NASP and NASW "golden ratio."
Allow students to take excused Mental Health Days
Consider mental health when making the schedule--one way would be to transition to a 4-day week while maintaining a 5-day work week for teachers.

Offer a Financial Literacy Class

Teach our students how to manage money and build wealth

Not every student has the privilege of learning how to navigate the modern economy at home. Our students should not graduate high school clueless. Let's teach our students about credit, budgeting, and more. Currently, our schools only offer "financial literacy" in a Business Management sense, and it is an elective. Let's ensure that our students break out of poverty by providing a personal financial literacy class and making it a graduation requirement.

Teacher Retention and Attraction

Refresh our careers/job posting page with a more modern look.
Significantly raise teacher pay by ensuring that pay is the top budget priority. We can do this by working with the county council to receive more than maintenance-of-effort funds and by continuing to actively search for grants to make sure our school system is well funded.
Regularly communicate with teachers to ensure their concerns are heard and decisions are made in their best interest.