OASA

Dr. Pam Deering, CCOSA/OASA Executive Director

Derald Glover, OASA Assistant Executive Director

OASA has always been the go to organization for school superintendents and central office administrators. FY21 is proving how important our professional organization is to our members. Once again, OASA has stepped up to provide communication and up to the minute information to its members as we go through the most challenging year in the history of public education leadership.

The OASA bi-weekly zoom “Touch Base” meetings have topped 277 attendees and will continue as long as there is a need to share information. Besides providing this valuable forum for networking and sharing information, our efforts to seek input for our legislative goals may have been more extensive than ever. Our OASA board members were asked to get specific goal language and our legislative committee has spent hours putting together goals that reflect our members’ needs. We also have added detailed language that supports our legislative goals and provides specific direction for our advocacy efforts. Our communication network and defined goals may be more important than ever this year as we anticipate an intense battle against school choice scholarship and tax credit legislation.

In order to maintain its strength, OASA is seeking 100 percent membership from school superintendents. As of mid-year, 94 percent of our school superintendents were members and more are joining. CCOSA recently added Kathy Dunn to begin providing much needed support and services to central office administrators. She has begun a network of federal program, Indian education, and student information administrators and staff. These meetings have been heavily attended and it is anticipated that many of these staff will join and make OASA even stronger in size and influence.

Besides advocacy, membership, and network communications, OASA has continued its effort to build “Quality School Frameworks” using both research and our own members’ expertise. OASA believes that if school leaders don’t define “quality” in public schools, we will allow others to define it for us. The Blended Framework has been a solid guide for hundreds of schools to build their own virtual/blended learning opportunities. Our two Instructional Leadership Cohorts have had the fortune to meet in small groups with Dr. Bill Daggett and give him feedback as he helps lead a national committee on education reform. Schools that are using the Professional Budget Framework are reporting tremendous responses from their school boards. Our Energy Efficiency Framework has launched. Pilot schools are just being onboarded to have an energy manager trained and more opportunities are coming.

The latest Quality Framework is the Equity Framework. This Framework is designed to provide schools with a research based approach to ensuring that ALL students are given the opportunity to maximize their potential while being guided by staff who are well trained and understanding of the unique needs of each child. As with all of the Frameworks, the Equity Framework is built upon a combination of research and best practices by our own OASA members.

OASA is your professional organization and our strength is through engaged members. We will continue to fight on behalf of public-school administrators by advocating on your behalf at the State Capitol. Through our Quality School Frameworks, our communications network, and our advocacy, we continue to show that schools are being led by true professionals. We hope you will continue to be an active part of this amazing organization and continue to ride with the OASA brand!