One of the reasons why the Orcutt Union School District is known as a big family is that so many of our employees went to school here.
At our annual back-to-school convocation for all district staff in August, we decided to recognize these homegrown members of our team. When we called our “Legacy Employees” to the bleachers, we were amazed to see over 200 people respond. Those in the assembled group – including trustees April Huckabey, Mark Steller, and Melanie Waffle – were all smiles as they posed for a photo we later posted on our Facebook account.
              “I didn’t realize how many of us there were,” says Patterson Road School office assistant Elena Siemsen, a product of Ralph Dunlap and Orcutt Junior High schools.
Like Siemsen, most of our Legacy Employees attended elementary and junior high school in our district and later came to work here. Some get to work alongside teachers and other staff they knew when they were students here.
“It’s a cool experience because you are with so many familiar faces,” says Siemsen. “It makes me proud to be a part of this school district.”
          In a few cases, we have Legacy Employees who once were classmates and now are OUSD colleagues. Joe Dana, our assistant superintendent of educational services, and Julie Kozel, Alice Shaw School principal and executive director of curriculum and instruction, were in the same kindergarten class at Alice Shaw in the 1970-1971 school year and now work closely together.
         “From growing up in the same neighborhood and going to the same elementary school, Julie and I innately understand each other,” says Dana. “And it all started in Mrs. (Nadine) Crosby’s kindergarten classroom.”
          “I have great memories of elementary school,” says Kozel, who has risen from student to leader of Alice Shaw. “I love being part of the community and neighborhood here.” 
          Kozel’s co-administrator at Alice Shaw, Jillian Bailey, also is a product of the school. Bailey attended Alice Shaw in the 1990s and had one of the school’s current teachers, Monique Segura, as a student teacher in second grade.
“It’s like a dream come true to work here,” says Bailey. “I knew when I was in Mrs. (Nancy) Cutler’s kindergarten class that I wanted to be a teacher someday. I am not a teacher now, but it is an honor to serve the students and teachers of this school.”
Some of our younger Legacy Employees are graduates of our district’s charter high school, Orcutt Academy High School. An example is Julia White, a 2020 OAHS graduate who now is an English teacher there.
          “It’s very special to be back on campus working alongside some wonderful teachers who shaped my love for English,” says White, who names current OAHS English teachers Michael Shaw and Graham Culbara as influences. “I am enjoying being on the other side of the desk, knowing what the students here are feeling and going through.”
          Shaw, a Legacy Employee himself who attended Patterson Road and Orcutt Junior High schools, welcomes White as a colleague.
           “It’s amazing to have students come back and work here,” Shaw says. “Julia has a good heart and wants to give back to the community that invested in her.”
For so many of our Legacy Employees, being part of Team OUSD is the realization of a lifelong goal.
           “Since I was in kindergarten, I wanted to be a teacher, and I wanted to work in Orcutt, so getting here was a little bit of a dream for me,” says Shaw. “I wanted to carry on the torch of what my dad (longtime OUSD teacher Dick Shaw) started, which is to be approachable, kind, and caring to students. Orcutt lets its teachers do all of that, and I am so happy to be here.”