ORANGE PARK – With 95 percent approval, members of Clay County’s teachers’ union voted last Thursday to accept a new contract from the Clay County School District that provides raises for the next two school years.

“We ratified a two-year deal, $1,000 each year for our Highly-Effective Professional Service Contract teachers. Our Highly-Effective teachers got $1,700 this year and next year guaranteed and our Effective Annual Contract teachers got $756 or somewhere around there. But we did a two-year deal, so we don’t have to worry about salaries next year because our concentration, along with Mr. Davis and the school board is insurance,” said Renna Lee Paiva, president of the Clay County Education Association union, after the “State of the Schools” event on Jan. 18.

She said the district has to find a way to offer better benefits to new teachers or the district will end up losing a lot of talent to other area school districts that pay a higher portion of each teacher’s insurance.

The teacher contract now moves to the full school board for approval at its Feb. 1 meeting at the Fleming Island High Teacher Training Center.

“We’re very happy. We know we have a problem with insurance and we know we cannot continue to put it on the backs of our teachers,” Paiva said.

She said that, for the last nine years, the Clay County School District has not increased the amount of money – currently just under $5,200 per teacher – it pays towards each teacher’s health insurance.

School Board Chairman Carol Studdard welcomed the news of a successful teacher contract negotiation at the event.

“We have been working very hard [on the contract], we have been wanting to do everything that we could for our teachers and now, I think that this is good,” Studdard said.

She agreed with Paiva that now the school board has to tackle health insurance.

“We have got to figure out a way to make it less expensive for our employees to have good insurance, but it’s a nationwide problem and we’re going to work together. That’s what it’s all about,” Studdard said. “We’re all a team.”

In his “State of the Schools” address, Superintendent Addison Davis told the approximately 200 attendees from the district and the community that he wants to be held accountable every year, not just every four years at the ballot box. He covered multiple aspects of the district from its capital improvement needs to state test scores and the recently-announced jump in the graduation rate.

“This is what I am most proud about – at the end of the day, no matter what our school grade is, we want to make sure that we provide and we have a cohort of learners that are graduating every single day – this is the end game,” Davis said.

The district moved up 3.7 percentage points to 88.4 percent, a 14.2 percentage point increase over the last six years. A year ago, the graduation rate was reported at 84.7 percent. The district also achieved record graduation rate highs in multiple subgroups and moved from 17th to 9th overall in the state, which brings the district into the Top 10 among school districts statewide.

“This clearly shows that we are working tremendously hard to get our kids ready to be full option graduates,” Davis said.

Davis also broke down the data for attendees and discussed how different student subgroups also had increases in the graduation rate.

For example, students identified as at-risk of dropping out showed a 5.7 percent increase from 2016 to 2017 and the graduation rate among students with a disability increased 7.9 percent. The district also experienced a 7.3 percent jump in the graduation rate of students who are speakers of other languages.

“We have moved the needle in so many different ways and that’s thanks to all of the hard work our teachers do every single day,” Davis said.

He said he was grateful how teachers are helping move away from a “one size fits all teaching approach with our curricula” by understanding more how “Our kids come into our classrooms with different mindsets and different intellectual abilities.”

Davis said he tries to over-communicate with district staff, something he admits he must remain aware of in order to develop a better work-life balance for himself and his family, as well as the district’s staff.

“I know they’re probably sick of my emails that I send all the time. I know I’ve gotten better from moving them from 1-o-clock in the morning to more of a 9-o-clock at night kind of email to everyone,” Davis said.

Davis publicly admitted his weaknesses and stated personal aspects of his leadership style he wants to work on to become a better superintendent.

“One thing I have to do is [work on] promises made, promises kept,” Davis said.

He said one of the issues in which he may have over-promised concerned upgrading Wi-Fi access in the classrooms of the district’s 41 schools. He said he wants to give elementary and junior high students more choices of learning environments, such as possibly an International Baccalaureate program or a Montessori School

“I think we can do greater work as it relates to robust choice programs in our elementary schools along with our junior high schools,” Davis said.

He also said as superintendent he is constantly looking at systems that can help improve the district’s financial picture, while also ensuring students have safe buildings that are maintained and repaired in a timely manner. He said a recent needs assessment of district buildings found it would take $250 million to fix every current facility need in the district.

“So, I have to do a better job of finding additional revenue sources to address that immediate need within this organization,” Davis said.

Davis was met with cheers and applause when he mentioned his final improvement need.

“I’ve got to slow down,” he said.

“I have got to do a better job of not only being a professional, but I’ve got to do a better job of being a husband and I’ve got to do a better job of being a father and by slowing down, that will allow me to do so. But, I thank my family for sticking with me for the last 20 years. For those of you who know me, I grind – it’s 18, 19 hours a day and I’m just built that way. I love my job and this is who I am, but I’m trying very hard to slow down.”