Karen Lloyd

STEUBENVILLE — Hoping to better prepare educators for the classroom and advocate for wage increases, a local woman with 36 years of public education teaching experience is running for a seat on the Ohio State Board of Education.

Raised in Mingo Junction and living in Steubenville, Karen Lloyd is a candidate for the state board of education’s District 8 seat. Running unopposed in a non-partisan election, Lloyd is the race’s presumptive winner.

The state education board is composed of 19 members, 11 of whom are elected to four-year terms in an equal number of education districts. With confirmation from the state Senate, the governor appoints the board’s remaining eight members to represent the state at large.

District 8 includes all of Mahoning, Columbiana, Carroll, Jefferson, Harrison, Tuscarawas, Coshocton, Licking, Guernsey, Belmont, Noble, Monroe, Morgan, Washington, Athens and Meigs counties, as well as portions of Holmes and Stark counties.

Typically convening once per month, the board manages K-12 public education in the state. It is responsible for appointing the state superintendent, naming a teacher of the year, overseeing disciplinary and corrective action for Ohio school staff and setting the standards for maintaining and obtaining various educator licenses. The board does not handle educational funding or curricula, which are managed by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.

Lloyd graduated from Kent State University with a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education in 1988. She received a master’s degree in education from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2003.

Before her retirement in July, Lloyd had been a public school educator for 36 years, spending 32 of those years in the Indian Creek Local School District. She taught pre-school for 24 years and also taught fourth, third and sixth grades. Her last seven years were spent teaching first grade.

“I loved to go to work every day. I loved the people that I worked with,” Lloyd recalled of her teaching experience. “The children made my job fun. I always felt that, if you aren’t having fun in what you’re teaching, your kids aren’t having fun.”

Toward the end of her career, Lloyd served as president of the Indian Creek teachers’ union and Eastern Ohio Education Association. Being involved with the union, she had the opportunity to work on a professional efficacy committee for the OEA. That committee was charged with recommending changes to the Ohio Resident Educator Program — then a four-year period wherein recently graduated teachers received mentoring from senior teachers.

At her committee’s recommendation, Lloyd said, the state changed the REP’s period from four to two years so that teachers could have a more concentrated experience.

Lloyd said she’s qualified to be a part of the board that oversees teacher licensing based on her experience serving on the Local Professional Development Committee for Jefferson County, which develops guidelines for teachers to renew or obtain five-year licenses.

As for dealing with disciplinary actions, Lloyd said she’s “well versed,” noting her role as a union president, handling codes of conduct and ensuring teachers understand and meet their standards.

The board’s goal must be to “obtain and maintain quality educators,” Lloyd said. In order to do that, the board must work with higher education institutions in the state to ensure that teacher candidates, before they finish their own education, receive classroom exposure and practice that adequately prepares them for their careers.

If elected, Lloyd said, she’d examine the REP and push to have every school district in the state give at least one teacher a year’s release from his or her classroom duties. This would free the teacher up to work as a resident educator, guiding the mentee without having to worry about managing his or her own classroom simultaneously.

Also on Lloyd’s platform is the desire to raise the starting salary for Ohio teachers up to around $50,000 or $55,000 per year. The current minimum starting salary for Ohio teachers with a bachelor’s degree is $35,000 per year, though salaries and raises vary by school and are determined by a salary schedule that takes into account level of education and years of experience.

“We need the legislature to look at how teachers are paid and raise those minimum salaries and equalize salaries across the state,” Lloyd said. “We’re all doing the same job. We’re all dealing with the same types of children, so why are we all being paid differently?”

From the board, Lloyd intends to advocate for changes from the state legislature and ODEW, fostering a “two-way bridge” of communication for proposing policy and funding direction.

Lloyd is endorsed by the Ohio Education Association and Ohio Democratic Party.