After so many years of work at OCSA, our assistant principal, Mark Conners will be retiring at the end of this school year. Mr. Conners has been a crucial part of OCSA over the past 10 years. His work as the assistant principal and assistant principal for curriculum instruction consists of preparing the schedule every year, the student’s audition process, what classes are to be taught in certain periods and which student’s get to take said classes. Not to mention he has a say in the hiring process of teachers and staff and evaluates the teachers every so often. He has been a loving part of the OCSA family for as long as he’s worked here and will be greatly missed.

“It’s weird…this is what I’ve done every day for the last 30 years, it’s just kinda strange not thinking that it’s not gonna be what I do come June 1st… It’s not the same thing, y’know? and I’ve been doing this for a long time, specially yknow? the last [18-20] years as administrator. I was an administrator every day and all summers it was the same, it’s an interesting idea doing something different,” said Mr. Conners.

His work as an administrator didn’t just begin here at OCSA. Mr. Conners has worked in the education department of Florida for 30 years and originally started his career as a special education teacher at Thacker Avenue Elementary School. From there he’s been an administrator at Osceola Highschool until he ended up here at OCSA where he’s spent almost a decade here as assistant principal and administrator.

Mr. Conners has done more than just be an administrator of OCSA, he’s been kind and friendly to the students as most socialize with him as one of their own. There is a good portion of the students and even teachers that have experienced the therapeutic golf cart ride around school with Mr. Conners talking about anything regarding the school and life itself.

When asked what he will miss the most he answered, “it’s definitely going to be the kids, the students… [people say] ‘kids are so bad,’ you know all that kind of stuff and you hear that a lot of the times and honestly that’s never been my experience here. I think I’ve had in the years here so many good experiences of kids just being good to each other. There are times where people are mean but in reality, so many more times here, I’ve seen kids just be good to each other.”
As involved as he is with students, he takes it a step further and makes sure to attend the big major shows like the musicals we have every year and other such events to help support the student body. “I think last year at [Essentially] Ellington when the kids won was probably one of my favorite things just because we had been there so many times, I’ve been there four other times and we’ve never gotten to the top three…and then for them to actually get through and actually win,” explained Conners reminiscing on past events. “One of my favorite events of all time whenever I was here was when Mr. Capley was doing K cafe back in the day. To me I always loved that event because to me what it was, was you got to see the kids performing at what they wanted to do, not necessarily what their teachers wanted them to do. So that was really cool to see.”

Mr. Conner’s colleagues as well as the other administrators and teachers will be sure to miss him. He’s grown with some while he’s seen other leave and other’s come in and start anew at OCSA. “I’m going to miss him, he was good to have around, he’s really good with the kids and he’s really good with helping with auditions and knows a lot about the school. It’ll be sad to see him go,” explained Mr. Vedder, the school dean.

As we enjoy what’s left of the school year be sure to wave to Mr. Conners or spend some time with him for the time he has left with us. And let’s wish Mr. Conners a happy and relaxing retirement! We will all truly miss his presence here at OCSA and the community will welcome him with open arms any time he wishes to visit the school for concerts or shows!