Annette Price seeks to build trust between parents, NPS
By Brian D. King, as published in The Norman
Transcript, Feb. 5, 2023
Annette Price, an educator, business owner and public relations and outreach coordinator at the University of Oklahoma, is seeking the Office 3 position on the Norman Public Schools Board of Education, which will be decided Feb. 14. Her three children have been enrolled in district schools for 16 years.
“Public education should serve all students,” Price said. “Every child should feel safe at school and have the opportunity to learn and grow. We as a district should always be looking toward innovation, equity, and resilience. We know that stronger schools make a stronger Norman.”
As education is recovering from negative effects of the coronavirus pandemic, Price said that it is important to meet students, families and even teachers where they are and work with them so they can better reach their full potential.
To Price, this means inviting families to be active participants in the learning of their young ones.
“Our children learn best when the adults in their lives are committed to listening and learning,” she said.
Currently, Price is helping to develop a meteorology curriculum for pre-K through 12th grade at the National Weather Center on the OU campus.
“I’m working with the scientists and the researchers at OU at NOAA Cooperative Institute,” she said. “We are creating a series of traveling trunks – or collections of lessons and hands-on activities – for elementary students, and we are also working with the Tulsa Regional STEM alliance to develop a free curriculum and career exploration in meteorology for middle school students.”
Price holds a master’s degree in education, and she is a certified teacher in journalism and English. She has taught at Moore Norman Technology Center and she worked as a teaching assistant at Wilson Elementary as a teaching assistant. She taught middle school in Oklahoma City before working in communications for the State Department of Education.
She has served as PTA president at Wilson Elementary and Longfellow Middle schools and the Oklahoma PTA state board.
Price supports the 10-year $354 million bond, which voters will decide on Feb. 14. She most looks forward to the construction that will allow the district to get rid of portable classrooms.
“That is a safety issue,” she said. “We are bringing the buildings up to code as far as ADA is concerned.”
If elected, she hopes to work with families and encourage them to take part in the education of their children.
“I think what’s important to address is that the pandemic has eroded family engagement a great deal over the last three years,” she said. “We need to meet parents where they are at, and we need to create diversified opportunities to re-engage with schools in a meaningful way.”
She said that family engagement accelerates learning, and that rebuilding trust will be vital to reclaim relationships she said have been strained since 2020.