|
Office Profile:
Office Title: Orange County School Board - District Four
Term: Four years
Salary: $40,887
|
|
|
Candidate: Deeba Ahmad
|
|
Educational Background: I am a medical doctor, an MBBS (British
equivalent of MD)
|
|
Age: I am in my 40's!
|
|
Current Occupation: Currently, I am raising my 2 sons; 14
yr old and 10 yr old.
|
|
Civic Organizations: School Advisory Council, PTA, ADDitions
volunteer, Chaperone for OCPS, League of Women Voters
|
|
What are the top three challenges facing Orange County Public
Schools?
- Budget cuts along with rising fuel costs: Over $70 million in
budget cuts and an extra $8 million in fuel costs are burdening
the school system and will eventually compromise the quality and
number of programs. With more cuts in the pipeline we should be
diligently looking towards alternate sources of fuel and energy
(solar energy etc.) And making the schools and buses more energy
efficient.
- Lack of communication between the governing entities and the
public. The recent "Time Flip" has widened the gap of
trust and communication. There needs to be operational transparency
and an open door policy.
- Loss of 585 teachers. Working with hundreds of fewer teachers
than before and making sure that the education of our children
is not compromised will be an overarching challenge. I will seek
a re-allocation of funds from the capitol budget and cut administrative
costs.
|
|
Are you in favor of/opposed to an elected, countywide school
board chair, and why?
Opposed
School Board Members are elected as representative of their respective
districts with each of them having a single vote on board issues;
they are the voice of their district. Single district members are
elected with grass-root efforts and their campaigns are not costly.
Currently, the board's chairperson is picked from amongst the board
members.
The proposed elected school board chair will be a countywide election,
with little or no grass- roots effort and will cost nearly $300,000
to run. Due to the need to raise that money the special interest
groups will find it easy to influence the elected chair. Above everything
else, the elected chair will have 2 votes (which is unprecedented),
and therefore will dilute the votes of the other board members,
thus disenfranchising a large portion of the population.
|
|
What are three things "going right" for Orange County
Public Schools? How will you continue forward progress?
- Orange County Schools received an overall 'A' this year and
FCAT scores have risen. These trends need to continue and I will
raise the bar a notch by emphasizing teaching outside the box,
focusing on SAT and ACT scores, and narrowing the achievement
gap.
- Violent crimes have gone down in public schools. I will emphatically
continue to be a big proponent of programs like GREAT, DARE, and
other mentoring programs. After school programs keep kids out
of trouble and help them to continue to achieve, I will strive
to get as many funds and as much cooperation as needed from our
community partners.
- OCPS has done a great job of coping with the size and diversity
of the county. We have many impoverished and needy kids, and the
school district has remained committed to their education where
many other facets of life have failed them.
|
|
Campaign Contact Information:
|
Please visit my web-site - deeba4schoolboard.com
and campaign phone # 407-486-1961
|
| |
|
| |
|
