Delegates Vogel and Charkoudian’s giveaway to their friends on the Board of Education includes a scholarship to the student member of the board (SMOB). SMOBs already receive a $25,000 scholarship, and Vogel-Charkoudian want to increase that to the lesser of a) the highest tuition + room + board within UMD and b) 80% of a…
In part 1 of this series we reviewed the historical narrative for granting full-time pay to MCPS Board of Education members. The overarching theme for the pay increase is that the board members are doing full-time work for part-time pay. Here is a map of the counties in the DC region. The ones shaded in…
MoCo delegates Lorig Charkoudian and Joel Vogel have introduced MC 7-25, which provides for the following: a) MCPS Board of Education members get pay raises to $124,000/year starting December 2026 from the current $25,000/year (BoE president gets $10,000 more); b) the student member of the board is entitled to 80% of that $124,000 to be…
On December 5, 2024 several members of the public testified before the Board of Education against the BOE adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Association definition of Antisemitism, as the County Council did in 2022. Former MCPS parent Evelyn Frankl stated in her testimony, “In the context of Jews and Palestinians in the US, Jews are…
The electoral earthquake we all felt November 5 has had its predictable reactions. Personally, I’m not overly charmed by the degree of vindication we see in some (certainly not all) pro-Trump channels. After all, the GOP victors must be gracious to their opponents, and they certainly must avoid the hubris and dismissiveness the progressives have…
An October piece in MoCo 360 had a headline “MCPS’s Black and brown community presses [MCPS Superintendent Thomas] Taylor on educational inequities.” At this meeting, concerned parents were looking for solutions to the festering student performance allegedly attributable to race. According to the article, one parent asked if MCPS would allow students to switch schools…
We sat down with Esther Wells, who has been extremely active in the community as it relates to the Board of Education, to learn more about what informed her selections this year. You recently posted on X your selections for BOE, can you tell us how closely you have been following the election this year?…
It’s often said that the best predictor of future performance is past performance. What does that mean for the board of education? Apple ballot endorsed candidates have shown feckless, fearful, and obedient behavior in office. Time after time, member after member. From fear of making an independent decision during the pandemic to the whiplash of…
One of the leading concepts promoted by the woke left is opportunity hoarding. Opportunity hoarding is whenprivileged social groups control access to community resources and prevent underprivileged groups from utilizing important resources. Lynne Harris, Laura Stewart and Natalie Zimmerman are all white women running against women of color. Harris is running against Rita Montoya, Stewart…
Back in April, 2023, the local NBC4 / Washington DC affiliate published an I-Team exclusive on the state of special education in area county schools. Overall, what the I-Team discovered was that the state of special education in and around Washington, DC was not in a good place for parents, students, or over-worked school staff…