By Adam Pagnucco.
One of the things that makes the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) unusual is that it has a lot of leaders. Unlike the huge majority of local unions, MCEA limits members of its board of directors, including its president, to no more than two consecutive terms in the same position. This guarantees frequent turnover in its leadership.
David Stein, MCEA’s new president, is the fifth president I have known following Bonnie Cullison, Doug Prouty, Chris Lloyd and Jennifer Martin. Martin, a firebrand leader who faced enormous challenges head on, left after one term. Stein inherits a union that has evolved from a polite organization joined at the hip with its superintendent (the indomitable Jerry Weast) to a militant group that launched a sit-in at the county council and is on the verge of knocking out three school board members. Perhaps no influential organization in the county has changed more than MCEA.
How does Stein see the county and the school system? And what kind of leader will he be? Let’s get to our questions and his answers!
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MCEA President David Stein.
Q: Let’s start with your career in education. Why did you become a teacher and why did you become active in MCEA?
I’ve been a classroom teacher for over 30 years; 28 of those years have been with MCPS – and of those, 22 were teaching math at Blair High School. I wanted to become a teacher after seeing the power of education and particularly the power of public education in my own life. I became a math teacher because math is a powerful tool that helps students better understand their material and social realities. I believe that I can teach students to harness the power of math to better understand how the world works and how to improve it. I’ve been lucky to have been able to teach the application of math modelling to problems ranging from school funding to predicting election outcomes to gerrymandering. My new role takes me out of the classroom and while I’ll miss working directly with my students, I am proud to be MCEA’s president and fight for all our students and educators full-time.
My path as a Union activist began when I started in MCPS in 1997. I have always seen education as an essential part of democracy, and it is through our union activism that we place the needs of public education in the forefront. I began as a building representative and as a member of the MCEA political action committee. This was natural work for me, as I grew up in Upstate New York in a family steeped in politics. My father was a college professor and a town and county council member. My mother was the Chair of the County Democratic Committee for 40 years. Some of my earliest memories revolve around anti-Vietnam War campus protests and the presidential campaigns of Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern.
I believe that MCEA remains the strongest vehicle for improving public education in the county. When educators are united through their union, we can achieve the change we need for our students and fellow educators.
Q: School security has been in the news a lot lately. Is it a problem for staff and students? If so, what do your members think are the best ways to improve it?
Students, parents, educators, and visitors to any school campus should feel and be safe. This is a concern shared nationally: a 2023 Gallup survey showed that over a third of parents were concerned about their child’s safety at school – largely over concerns about gun-related violence. We have the right to live free from gun violence, and MCEA, along with our parent unions, MSEA, and NEA, support efforts to reduce gun violence in our communities.
At the local level, we must invest in strategies proven to make our students and school campuses safer. The data is clear: we do this by building supportive school communities and hiring mental health professionals – counselors and school psychologists – along with teachers whom students trust and who, according to the Learning Policy Institute, “can reduce disciplinary incidents and recidivism.”
It’s important to educators that the safety measures adopted at their schools are proven to work and are not merely performative. Recently, a cottage industry has sprung up that monetizes parents’ fears about student safety by selling costly bullet-proof backpacks, clipboards, and binders. Some school districts have shelled out millions to purchase metal detectors and guards to operate them, with little data indicating that metal detectors prevent weapons from entering schools or make students and educators safer. We are concerned that these would be costly measures for county residents that will bear little fruit and instead criminalize students – especially Black and brown students – for the simple activity of entering school.
Instead, we should make the investments that will truly transform our schools and students and help everyone feel safer on our campuses by hiring mental health and educational professionals who are proven to create safer campus climates.
Q: This year, MCEA has not endorsed any school board incumbents and all of your endorsees have emerged from the primary. Why should voters who are not MCEA members support your candidates?
Our members, as well as the voters of Montgomery County, are ready to turn the page on a period of scandal, secrecy, and obfuscation in MCPS. We are hopeful that a new Superintendent will be a herald in that transformation, but change is also necessary in the elected leadership of the district.
Board of Education members play critical, if unglamorous, roles in providing oversight of the district’s $3 billion annual budget, ensuring that the district is operating effectively, and taking measures to improve transparency. Like many others, we believe that the current Board has not adequately fulfilled these responsibilities.
We have been deeply disappointed by the Board’s lax oversight, resulting in scandals that cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars per the Montgomery County OIG June 2024 report, not including the $1.3 million payout for the previous superintendent. The Board needed to act boldly when they were notified that the school district had protected and promoted a principal who was notorious for repeatedly sexually harassing staff. Inaction by the Board has costly reverberations, including reducing staff morale and the community’s faith in the school district, and it has made it impossible for MCEA to support incumbents in good conscience during this election cycle.
After going through MCEA’s Apple Ballot endorsement process, MCEA voted to endorse Natalie Zimmerman, Laura Stewart, and Rita Montoya for the Board. In their written responses to our questionnaire and in candidate interviews, they articulated views that would resonate with any voter: they promised to take concrete steps to increase accountability, transparency, and oversight over the school district’s administration if they were elected to office – including over the district’s multi-billion budget. They also called for greater collaboration with the public, parents, unions, and community organizations. As a union, we have watched Laura and Rita actively engage parents through the county’s parent-teacher association, and as a union of educators, we understand the value of parents’ voices and want them to be heard more, not less.
In addition to her commitment to greater transparency and accountability, Natalie’s years as an educator in this district would make her invaluable on the Board. We need Board members who understand how to improve curriculum rollouts and implementation and viscerally understand what a larger class means to students and educators. We need someone whom parents have worked with and whom they trust. Natalie is that candidate.
The voters deserve Board members we can trust, whom we can rely on, and who we know will do the right thing when times get tough. They also deserve members who will champion kids and public education. Our slate of candidates will be those champions.
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More to come in Part Two!