Teacher recruitment and retention:
Spencer has worked hard as your Board Representative to address the real reasons why teachers are leaving OPS and why we struggle to recruit new talent. He has started the process of building an OPS student to teacher pipeline. “The district can no longer afford to passively sit back and wait for staff to come to us. Instead we need to think outside the box and find ways to grow our own staff.” Now every OPS high school has a teaching as a profession pipeline where the district will work with students who have an interest in teaching to provide them with additional opportunities and supports. The district will follow those students through college via partnerships with UNO and Midland. Then welcome them back to OPS as teachers upon graduation.
Spencer has approved and helped create several meaningful reforms to our teacher and para pay structure. Recently he led the district in proposing a nearly $17 M package aimed specifically at raising pay for our longer tenured teachers, special education teachers, and special education paras. Data shows that these teachers have been leaving in the highest numbers due to incentives provide by our surrounding districts. It was imperative for OPS to address those failures and keep our more tenured professional teachers with the district.
Academic Achievement:
The Omaha Public Schools educate nearly 20% of our state’s students. Our district’s success is vital not only to the success of our community, but that of our State as a whole. As Board President, Spencer has led the way by passing 9 wholescale curriculum overhauls since January of 2023. We need to ensure that what we are teaching meets the needs of students in a 21st century world. Literacy needs to be the central focus of everything that we do as a district, and we need to ensure that our students and teachers have the highest quality learning materials. These new curriculum will go a long way towards ensuring our students achieve at the highest levels.
Further, Spencer has overseen the implementation of OPS’s new high school programming that includes more high achieving programming than ever before. OPS through new partnerships with Cambridge International, the AP Scholars program, UNO, Midland University, and Metro Community college now offers more opportunities for high achieving students than ever before. Over the last two years we have over doubled our number of dual-enrolled students who are earning college credits while in high school.
Finally, Spencer led the creation of OPS’ Trades Bootcamp series. Through work with the leadership of our local labor organizations and the Nebraska Workforce Development Center, Spencer and OPS were able to build a series of trade camps that allow OPS students to experience all of the opportunities the trades present first hand. Students will travel to worksites, labor locals, or other sites to learn about the trades and often experience working in the trades firsthand. In the year that these trade camps have been taking place over 150 OPS students have benefitted from this programming and nearly 600 more have expressed interest. It is imperative, as a district, that OPS continues to sponsor and promote opportunities such as these to meet the needs of all of our students.
Fiscal Management:
Through the three budgets that Spencer has approved as a Board member the average general fund growth has been under 3%. It is important that we meet the needs of our students and pay our staff well. However, we cannot lose sight of the people who our funding comes from as well. For the 2024 school year, Spencer took over as chair of the Budget and Audit committee on the school board. He has proposed a budget that will increase pay for teachers and paras by nearly $17 million, allocate more money to programs and schools that need stronger academic supports, and will result in a property tax levy drop of 13%. For the first time in years, most OPS taxpayers will see their total taxes paid towards the district actually decrease with this new budget. Spencer has accomplished this by streamlining processes, finding efficiencies, and finding new revenue streams to offset the district’s reliance on property taxes.