Melissa
Oxley

Twenty years ago, my husband and I chose to move to Putnam County because we wanted to start a family and have our children attend some of the best schools in our state. I have a deep passion for engaging children In STEAM. I was a Girl Scout Leader for 9 years and thoroughly enjoyed watching the children grow and learn while engaging them in fun activities.

My oldest child is 17 and a Junior at Hurricane High School. My younger child is 13 and is currently homeschooling through an online virtual academy. Throughout our years in the school system, I have learned that although we have wonderful teachers and staff within our schools, there are challenges that need to be addressed. Having children with medical and behavioral issues brought them to the forefront. I would like to address these if I am elected to the Putnam County Board of Education.

The first issue would be complete transparency and better communication from the Board of Education down to the parents. When Covid-19 shut our schools down, parents and staff in Putnam County were not given enough guidance and information to fully assist the children with the transition. I believe we can learn from that mistake and develop a better plan of action should we have something else occur in the future.

The following semester, there was little to no information regarding the plans for implementing virtual schooling. I and 2 other parents took it upon ourselves to create a Facebook group to help inform other parents of pertinent information that we were getting from calling the Board office. This helped to keep misinformation from complicating the process but I feel that we (the parents) should not have had to do that on our own. This information should have been distributed directly to help ease our concerns and give us the correct information so we could make an educated decision for our children.

On that same note, no information was given by the Board to let parents know there was a virtual option for the school year 2021-2022. This information was also brought to light only because a parent called the board office and asked.

The second concern I would like to address is the lack of common sense in the decision-making process by our current Board of Education members. Covid-19 brought that to light by the lack of consideration for the expressed concern, guidance, and knowledge given by medical professionals while decisions were being made that directly affected our children and indirectly our families. Decisions were made based on political interests and hearsay. When a pandemic or any other medical crisis occurs, our medical professionals should be our first resource for guidance. This is no different in any other decision-making process. An expert professional in the field of concern should be consulted to help guide that decision to the best of our abilities.

The third concern that I feel needs addressed would be that every child does not learn at the same pace and in the same way. Virtual learning brought this to my attention. Both of my children were virtually schooled for the 2020-2021 school year. My youngest did so well with it that he is continuing to learn virtually via an online academy. He learns better without distractions and enjoys moving at his own pace (which is a little faster than what he would be doing in a physical classroom.) My oldest returned to in-person learning and enjoys learning in that environment. We need to offer our children the flexibility to learn in different ways so that the child’s education doesn’t suffer because of the conformity of our current school setting. Virtual, In-Person, or a combination of the two on a subject-by-subject basis could give the child who struggles in one or more subjects a different approach to help them learn and enhance their educational experience.

Finally, I am making a promise to always have an open mind. I will listen to all educated concerns and arguments and I will consider them when making any decision. We need a common-sense decision-maker on the Putnam County Board of Education.