Richard Woods

What priorities or key issues will you address if elected to this office?

The Richard Woods campaign did not submit responses to our questionnaire. The response is taken verbatim from the campaign website:

School Safety

• Expand mental health and SRO funding

• Provide line-item school safety funding

• Secure facilities and coordinate best practices

Expand Teacher Pay

• Expand salary step increases across careers

• Protect retirement and healthcare benefits

• Get rid of the “gotcha” teacher evaluation tool

Testing minimum 

• Establish a new federal testing minimum

• Use diagnostic tools in "off" years to guide learning

• Identify and reduce redundant local testing local testing

Develop multiple diploma pathways

• Provide a tailored high school experience

• Customize pathways for college, technical, or military

• Graduate with diplomas and acceptance letters

Modernize the K-12 funding formula

• Achieve a 21st century education for every child

• Increase transportation funding and recognize poverty

• Elevate Education Support Professionals

Expand opportunity for every child

• Support a well-rounded education for every child

• Expand access to the arts, STEM/STEAM, CTAE, and play

• Provide “Opportunity Grants” for all schools 

Lift our schools - not just label them

• Provide a fuller and fairer picture of performance

• Replace oversimplified ratings with detailed public dashboards

• Highlight opportunities and challenges so schools grow

Over half of Georgia’s teachers have expressed some concerns about burnout. How do you plan to improve retention in the teacher workforce and address teacher shortage?

The Richard Woods campaign did not submit responses to our questionnaire. The response is taken verbatim from the campaign website:

Expand teacher pay raises

During the pandemic, I lead the nation in giving all teachers and support staff a one-time $1,000 bonus. Working with the Governor, we’ve delivered on a promised $5,000 pay raise for all teachers.

​Currently, the salary scale is flat for the first three years and last nine years of a teacher’s career. This structure negatively impacts recruitment and retention. If honored with another term in office, I will work with policymakers to expand salary step increases across a teacher’s entire career.

I’ll continue to protect TRS retirement benefits and keep health insurance rates affordable. We cannot raise pay only to see additional pay diverted to rising retirement and healthcare costs.

Treat teachers as professionals

I fought to bring about much needed changes to the original TKES and LKES bill – eliminating SLOs (Student Learning Objectives), lowering the weight of high-stakes testing, and reducing the number of observations, while my opponent brags about authoring the original damaging legislation.

Despite measurable improvements, the current evaluation system still demoralizes teachers and doesn't professionalize them. We must move away from a ‘gotcha’ tool to one that truly treats teachers as professionals. 

We need a system that supports teachers throughout their careers -- from beginning teacher to teacher leader. We need a system with built-in mentoring and induction supports for those starting in the profession,  as well as greater flexibility, autonomy, and leadership opportunities for those who continue to grow in the teaching profession.

Under my direction, the Georgia Department of Education launched a teacher evaluation pilot with the focus on transforming our current model. Once we identify the supports we want leaders to provide to teachers and we define a strong profile for teacher leadership, we can develop a leader evaluation pilot that folds in essential pieces while streamlining the overall requirements of the system.

Let teachers teach and cut red tape

Our teachers were called to teach -- not push paperwork or check boxes. 

​We must free our teachers from the excessive requirements that pull them away from students and push them out of the profession.

​At the state level, we must streamline processes and cut red tape while getting local school districts to do the same.

How do you ensure that the public education system is meeting the needs of all Georgia communities - rural and urban, high resource and low resource? 

The Richard Woods campaign did not submit responses to our questionnaire. The response is taken verbatim from the campaign website:

Whatever a child's zip code, they deserve access to a well-rounded education.

We must establish 'Opportunity grants' for all schools, dedicating funding streams to support and expand opportunities in fine arts, computer science, recess and play, PE, STEM/STEAM, AP, gifted, Career, Technical and Agricultural Education (CTAE), and world language.