By Adam Pagnucco.
Back in 2018, I wrote a post titled The Worst Part of Campaigning. It was about questionnaires. If you’re a candidate for pretty much anything, expect to be deluged by them. Every group and their Aunt Ethel will send you questions about everything they ever wanted to know. As if going to events, raising money, knocking on doors and putting up with annoying bloggers is not bad enough, filling out these questionnaires is more time consuming than a visit to the Motor Vehicle Administration.
So six years later, what am I doing? Sending a questionnaire to the school board candidates, of course!
Now look. In my defense, the past few years have been anything but normal for MCPS. There was the pandemic. There were labor disputes. There was the curriculum opt out controversy. There was the budget fight of last year. There was the sexual harassment scandal. And a superintendent was forced out in the middle of a contract, something that has not happened at MCPS since 1979. The school board election of 2020 was a testy affair, at least in the at-large race. This year’s election is on a whole new level of cray cray.
If there were ever a school board election that mattered, we are in the middle of one now. And here is the problem with MoCo elections in general: it can be hard to tell the candidates apart. That’s especially true in Democratic primaries in which the overwhelming majority of candidates market themselves to the progressive left with nearly identical messaging. School board elections are different because they are non-partisan. Republicans and unaffiliated people vote in both the primaries and general elections. But unfortunately, school board candidates typically don’t have the money to communicate with voters. How are we supposed to know what they think?
That’s where my questionnaire comes in. In accordance with my views on questionnaires, I kept mine short at seven questions. These questions don’t cover every issue at MCPS. If that were my intention, I would have asked 50 questions and these candidates would be pelting my house with eggs. Instead, I tried to ask questions that would elicit their differences. That’s the true basis for casting an informed vote – how are these folks different and which ones are most in alignment with you, the voter? I also asked two questions that were directly tied to my previous writings.
Here are the questions that I asked.
1. What is MCPS’s biggest problem and what would you do to fix it?
2. Describe any experience you have in overseeing budgets of large organizations.
3. For incumbents only: Please describe your achievements on the board. For non-incumbents only: Tell us something you would do differently than the incumbent against whom you are running.
4. Should parents have the right to opt out of curriculum materials that disagree with their religious beliefs?
5. Should police officers be stationed inside high schools? Should they be stationed inside middle schools? And if they are stationed inside any schools, how should they interact with students?
6. Montgomery Perspective has reported on MCPS transfers of millions of dollars out of instructional salaries and towards other purposes. Is this a problem? If it is, how would you fix it? For reference: https://montgomeryperspective.com/tag/teacher-salary-series/
7. Interim Superintendent Monique Felder once took $6,000 from an outside group connected to school vendors while she was the chief academic officer in Nashville public schools. Will you introduce and work to pass a policy change banning such payments to MCPS employees? For reference: https://montgomeryperspective.com/2024/02/05/new-proposed-interim-superintendent-has-baggage/
In gathering answers, I emailed all the candidates and their treasurers four times (February 29, March 8, March 14 and March 15) with a deadline of March 15. I asked them to keep their responses to 200 words or less, a requirement to which they roughly adhered. Not all of them responded. That’s on them! But most of them did and I appreciate them.
I won’t be sharing any of my opinions during this series. (Cue sighs of relief from readers and candidates.) That’s because the opinions that matter are YOURS. I hope these answers from candidates help you cast an informed vote.
On to question 1 next!