President’s Message
Greetings colleagues!
My name is Aleli Vazquez, and I am incredibly proud and honored to serve as President of the Orange County Association of School Administrators (OCASA) for the 2022-2023 school year. I also serve as Principal of Village Park Elementary and Chair of the Trauma-informed Subcommittee for the OCPS Mental Health Commission. I am in my 11th year with OCPS and almost 20 years as an educator, eight years as a classroom teacher, two as a resource teacher, and my eighth year as an administrator. I have proudly served the following OCPS schools: Zellwood ES, Ridgewood Park ES, Union Park MS, Apopka ES, Meadow Woods ES, and Village Park ES.
In the past couple of years, our organization has increased our strength as advocates for school-based administrators. We have an outstanding executive board and representatives committed to supporting administrators and ensuring that your voices are heard. It has been three challenging years, and we understand how you feel. We discuss every communication you send us, and we allot the time it deserves to discuss and analyze how we can find solutions. And we will continue to do so during this year.
Thank you for helping us increase our membership numbers. We hope you continue spreading the word and bringing new school-based administrators to our association. When it is time to justify whom we represent and are advocating for, there is strength in numbers. Let us continue increasing those numbers and work as a united front. Our goal this year is to have at least 60% of school-based administrators join us.
Our board and I are fully committed to continuing to support each of you through the various challenges we encounter as administrators. We will continue to meet monthly with our new superintendent to collaborate on improving our work environments and obtain the support and resources we need to lead our schools.
We will focus our advocacy on a few topics that you highlighted as essential: improving morale and culture, salaries, advanced degrees supplements, and mental health. Please do not hesitate to share your input on how we can improve these. We will also appreciate your feedback on how OCASA can strengthen our support systems.
If you are not a member and wish to join, don’t hesitate to contact me via email or our membership director Monica Gordon, and we will get you signed up. Don’t forget to visit our website myocasa.net for updates, and very soon, we will also have a Twitter account.
Thank you for trusting us and know that we are here to serve you!
Make it happen,
Aleli