Though only a handful of the 2024 general election races received mass media coverage, special attention is worth paying to the results of smaller and less high-profile elections, which will have effects that radiate throughout their more-local constituencies. Some of the most momentous upsets on election night here in Montgomery County saw two challengers oust incumbent MCPS Board of Education (BOE) members in District 4 and an at-large seat, a BOE seat that is not attached to any district. A third challenger defeated the District 2 incumbent in the May primaries and went on to win the seat over a different candidate.
Rita Montoya, a former PTA president and lawyer, defeated incumbent BOE Vice President Lynne Harris for the at-large seat, while former countywide PTA member Laura Stewart unseated District 4 incumbent Shebra Evans and elementary school teacher Natalie Zimmerman defeated fellow challenger Brenda Diaz in District 2 after the incumbent, Rebecca Smondrowski, failed to qualify for the general election during the primaries. The victory over the incumbents has been largely attributed to endorsements by the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), Maryland’s largest local teachers union, which endorsed all three winning candidates.
“I think the MCEA impact is enormous because voters trust educators,” MCEA President David Stein said. “They trust educators to understand the problems in the schools and vet the candidates to pick the ones that are really going to be the best at advocating for students and for educators and for families.”
Additionally, Stein believes that the MCEA’s endorsements have a particularly significant impact when compared to other campaigning methods. Though the candidates raised sizable amounts of money, with challengers Montoya and Stewart raising over $27,000 and $31,000 respectively, the yard signs, stickers and pamphlets they purchased and distributed may not have affected voters’ opinions as much as the MCEA’s iconic “Apple Ballot”. Named after its apple-like shape, this list of ballot recommendations researched and compiled by the MCEA claims to represent the priorities and values of county-wide educators. All three BOE winners this election cycle appeared on the Apple Ballot.
“I think voters pay attention. You can raise a lot of money and run ads or run text message blitzes or the other things that candidates do,” Stein said. “But I think all of that pales [in comparison to] somebody handing you a ballot that says, ‘here are the candidates that teachers recommend.’”
The ousting of all three BOE members up for election this year reflects a desire for what Stein characterizes as forward progress and change. The resignation of former Superintendent Monifa McKnight earlier this year following investigations into the promotion of former Farquhar Middle School Principal Joel Beidleman, who had been accused over a dozen times of sexual harassment, caused tension at the upper levels of MCPS governance and sowed mistrust within parents, staff and students.
“I think the last few years in MCPS have been really marked by scandal and corruption,” Stein said. “And I think all of us really needed to turn a page… we have a new superintendent, and I think we really needed a new school board to come in and put that period of a lack of transparency, of secrecy and of scandal and corruption behind us.”
With this progress, Stein hopes to see some key issues addressed that were not sufficiently tackled by the previous school board, including the budget, with which MCPS recently lost about $40 million in state funding due to a submission error.
“We’re in very, very difficult financial times and we really need to address how we’re gonna go forward in that,” Stein said. “Some of our big, big problems are teacher retention problems [in] special education, ELD teachers and the student mental health crisis. All of those need to be real priorities of the incoming school board.”
It remains to be seen how the new board members, sworn into office on Dec. 2 will begin to address the issues MCPS voters identified with the leaving incumbents. A major concern for the incoming members will be to pursue openness and communication that many MCPS stakeholders felt was missing in the months preceding McKnight’s departure.
“My top priorities fit into why I ran: ready to A.C.T. This stands for bringing more accountability, collaboration and transparency to the BOE,” Stewart, the newly-elected District 4 member, said. “I will continue to ask for MCPS to commit to open data, which includes providing downloadable data sets to the public. As we work through the budget process, I will also ask for updates and ensure that we are collaborating with our County Council partners so that they have all the information they need to make hard decisions.”
Stewart also believes in improving physical classroom environments, a priority that is relevant given recent county-wide complaints about aging infrastructure, including malfunctioning heating/air conditioning units, flooding rooms, molding ceiling tiles and broken windows.
“After listening to many school communities, I believe we must increase classroom support by hiring more paraeducators paired with high-quality training. This must be done in an equitable way so that we close the opportunity and achievement gaps,” Stewart said. “Part of the classroom environment is physical, so the other priority will be improving the environmental conditions, focusing on HVAC systems and maintenance.”
Overall, the three new BOE members will have major voices on the Board, and their goals appear to be focused on repairing the disconnect between MCPS command and the parents, staff and students whose disapproval of the previous BOE’s inefficacy allowed for the election of Montoya, Stewart and Zimmerman.
“I am honored to be elected to the MCPS BOE and to be able to serve our community,” Stewart said. “It’s important we keep lines of communication open with all of our school communities as we move through the boundary studies and I plan on checking in frequently to ensure we have all voices represented.”
