The three candidates running for Howard County Board of Education in District 3 (Jolene Mosley, Tom Heffner and Gian Alfeo) joined Scott E’s Blog on May 8th for a debate.
We were able to get five questions in during the debate…covering items like candidate qualifications, redistricting, election by districts, pay for substitute teachers and school capacity.
You can watch the debate on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/scotteblog/videos/574860589814497/
You can Watch the debate on YouTube here (the video quality is not as good as it is on Facebook): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52o8jVdGWV0
You can listen to to debate on Scott E’s Blog podcast channel here on PodBean: https://scotteblog.podbean.com/e/howard-county-board-of-education-district-3-candidate-debate/
I expect the debate to be on Scott E’s Blog podcast channel on iTunes here very soon: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scottes-blog-podcast/id1503974521
I want to thank all of the candidates for joining Scott E’s Blog for this event. I think it went well and some interesting things were said in the debate. Be sure to check it out.
Scott E
I’m not finished listening to this, but it’s an interesting discussion about not having enough school buildings and being (understandably) frustrated about the portables rather than building new schools. The state, which grants most of the funds for building new schools, has a formula by which they choose which school district will be awarded funds that year and how much. My understanding is that the formula, in an effort to be fair, downgrades a district’s eligibility for additional school building funds if they have recently been granted money for a similar project. This does not, in other words, take population growth rates or current overcrowding into account. Howard County has experienced intense student population growth comparative to other school districts, but because they have already built 1-2 new elementary schools in the recent past, we are not eligible for new elementary schools even if we could demonstrate need. HS #13 is the first new HS build we have been eligible for, and we “got away” with another partial remodel because it wasn’t considered a full rebuild. In other words, the candidates if elected would have no direct power to address the overcrowding anyway, except by using the portables and redistricting to at least spread out the overcrowding. HS #13 will be a huge relief on the high school end, however. (Major disclaimer: I have only heard this second and third hand; I have not personally fact checked any of the specifics. We also haven’t lived here terribly long, so the names/locations of particular schools haven’t stuck in my brain particularly well. So take the above statement with a grain of salt and feel free to add more/correct as needed.)
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