Monday, September 17, 2012
Board of Education.....Choices
Last Wednesday evening ( September 12) I had the pleasure of hosting an education forum, featuring all of the candidates for the three spots on the Howard County Board of Education (full disclosure, I am the current president of the Columbia Democratic Club). To be truthful, in planning this event, I really did not know what to expect. As I related to the attendees last night, we were still discussing format as late as the day of the event. Many of the candidates had emailed me to ask about the format, and my pat answer was "we're still working on it." My only directive was to keep it civil and learn something. We wrote questions, assigned a moderator and a timer...and went for the gusto. If I should say so myself....everything went very well.
Well, for starters, all of the invited candidates showed up, so many thanks to Bob Ballinger, Jackie Scott, Ellen Flynn Giles, David Gertler, Janet Siddiqui, and Ann DeLacy. Second, we attracted a great crowd. Most of the information from the club goes out either via newsletter or through Facebook. Obviously many folks got the word. Besides some of our CDC regulars, I saw several new faces. (you were anything but anonymous MM).
Before the task of planning for this forum, the board of education in HoCo was low on my attention radar. Since both of my sons are now adults, and living their own lives,(and were never educated in Howard County) I didn't feel that I had a particular investment or connection to the BOE. Sure, I know and have interacted with several board members, primarily related to my other political activities in the county. I had no particular interest in what they did though, or how they did it. The whole thing with Allen Dyer did catch my attention, but not for positive reasons. I began to think that the board may have been a group just concerned about their own political interests. All of that began to change last Wednesday evening.
I now realize that although my wife and I don't have kids in the system....my neighbors do. I pass a gaggle of youngsters waiting for buses and being transported to school, on my way to work. Their parents are concerned, and I'm certain that they want to maintain quality schools in HoCo. Besides, those children deserve a quality education, and a chance to contribute to society. What I saw on our panel were six individuals who have deep commitments regarding the education and welfare of Howard County students. Why else would you run for the board...right?
Our questions were not particularly probing, but it did give the audience a good barometer as to where these candidates stand. Most candidates expressed similar views on most of the questions. The only vague referral to the Dyer situation was "how would you handle conflict among board members ?" Most members agreed that communication and mutual respect were paramount as a member of the BOE. Ellen Flynn Giles did say that sometimes you need a "little conflict" in order to get things done.
Although there were no "fireworks" at last Wednesday's meeting, I think that my goal of "learning something" was achieved. I let the meeting drift on past the usual 8:30pm stop time, and almost everyone stayed to hear what the candidates had to say. I won't render any endorsements in this blog, as president I shouldn't, as a member of the Democratic central committee, I won't. But the panel gave me encouragement. No matter who fills those three slots, our Board of Education will be in good hands.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment