Cathy Osgood, a 19-year veteran of special education in Ventura County, has been named the Ventura County Office of Education District Teacher of the Year for 2016. Osgood is a special education teacher at Phoenix School in Moorpark and is now eligible to compete for Ventura County Teacher of the Year. In his nomination letter, Phoenix School Principal Mark Contreras explains why Osgood deserves high praise for her many years of work on behalf of our community's most vulnerable kids.  

Nomination Letter from Principal Mark Contreras

Mrs. Catherine Osgood is a 19-year veteran of special education in Ventura County.  She began as a paraeducator (5 years at Moorpark, 5 years with VCOE), and did her student-teaching in the VCOE Phoenix Program. She has been a classroom teacher for the past 9 years, and she has been the lead-teacher at the Phoenix Moorpark Site for the past 8 years.  Mrs. Osgood is an outstanding classroom teacher, and her gift for working with students with special needs is phenomenal. Along with the typical diagnoses of Emotional Disturbances among students in her classroom, she has taught a number of students this year whose primary diagnosis is Autism, and another with a serious diagnosis of Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). Mrs. Osgood has taken the challenge of working with students with such a wide range of disabilities head-on, and she has excelled this year. 

The best compliment I believe a teacher in the special education setting can receive, and this compliment has come from visiting district representatives, parents, and administration alike, is that their classroom instruction “looks just like what would be seen on a general education campus.” Mrs. Osgood delivers high-quality explicit direct instruction, and she infuses fun and interesting activities into all her subject areas.  She has established a highly structured and rigorous classroom, and she provides all the necessary supports for her students to be successful.  Above and beyond her teaching responsibilities, Ms. Osgood is the lead-teacher at this satellite campus at which she has not only guided a significant number of new employees (she is currently the induction mentor for a first year teacher), but she is regularly found filling administrative responsibilities for the site.

A student in Ms. Osgood’s class gets challenged to learn with curriculum material that you would expect to see in a grade-level equivalent classroom at a regular school.  She does an excellent job of using the CHAMPS model for student behavior and employs a points and levels system her students trust and “buy-in to.”  Ms. Osgood, allows for individual student differences, and provides opportunities for her students to learn in a variety of settings: individual, partner, group, and whole-class.  She uses her knowledge of her students to differentiate their learning, and she uses her classroom staff to provide individualized feedback and attention.  Mrs. Osgood gives her students projects on a regular basis that allow them to demonstrate their leaning in other ways than written or spoken words.  She creates learning opportunities that are fun and engaging, and she and her students have clearly established excellent relationships that I’m sure will be remembered for a lifetime.