On May 14th you have a very important job to do! And that job is pick the most qualified, compassionate, intelligent people to be a part of our BOE. You get to vote for 3 (there’s thankfully many more than 3 to choose from this year) and 6 get to go on to the general election in November. And remember that your lack of party affiliation does not prevent you for voting for these candidates as it is a non partisan election!
We’ve created three categories for you to peruse today. The first category will be our approved candidates. The second will be those that passed the Yokel muster, but didn’t exactly make it to the approved category mostly due to a lack of information or because we felt their stance on the various issues was not well articulated. And finally we have a pile of rejections! Thankfully the approved category vastly outnumbers our rejections this time around.
Your Lady Yokels made our decisions based on a few criteria. First the issues on their websites, in news articles, video interviews, and in-person forums had to match what we thought was important in a candidate. We like to see candidates mention making all students feeling welcome, a support for teachers and paying them what they deserve, a focus on student mental health, inclusion of all kinds of people and events in school libraries and the curriculum, and a commitment to teaching children with scientifically approved methods and not educational fads. If there is any hint of a candidate discriminating against children OR advocating for the removal of accurate history or sexual education, they went immediately into the rejection pile! We know your code words people! They aren’t hard to crack!
Click here to discover how we found all the candidates.
Below is our approved list of candidates along with a link to their website so you can see what they have to say for yourself!
- Jerry Alexandratos- in our original post we stated we couldn’t find his website, he has since contacted us with a link, and we have since moved him to the approved column!
2. Josh Bokee
3. Veronica Lowe
https://www.veronicaloweforfrederickcountypublicschoolsbo.com
4. Janie Monier
5. Cecelia Reider
6. Navian Scarlett
https://www.navianscarlett4frederick.com
7. Angie Vigliotti
8. Chad King Wilson, Sr.
These 8 would all make great members of the board! It’s so nice to see so many qualified people running this year.
The next set of candidates have a lot of promise, but some of them lacked information about what they would do as school board members. However, we didn’t feel as though they warranted an outright rejection.
- Manesh Aitha
2. Paul Fairfield- we really like a lot of what he had to say, but some of the issues are very one school specific.
Now our tone is going to change folks! The four candidates on this list must be avoided like the plague. We’ll give you some more details with each one for our rejection.
- Colt Black, yes the same Colt Black that ran for Congress but now wants to be on the school board. Here’s something on his website that really got to us:
Protect Parental Rights
As a parent, you don’t cede your rights to guide and parent your child at the school door. So often times parents are treated as the enemy by teachers and administrators of schools. Spoken down to and disrespected. Enough is enough. It’s past time to ensure parents are respected by teachers and administrators and treated as a partner in their child’s education. Whether you are dealing with a student with special needs and are working to get your student the services they are entitled to or a disciplinary issue which is being taken too far. Or perhaps there is something your student or yourself object to on the basis of religious or philosophical thought which is causing the conscience to be violated and in turn violating your rights, parents need an advocate on the board who will stand up to ensure that every child receives a quality education.
So parents are the enemies of the teachers and administration? And why is that, because the parent doesn’t agree with what is being taught, or their kid misbehaved and actually faced some consequences? And what’s this nonsense about parents being abused?
We’re going to drop this right here for Mr. Black and anyone else who is curious:
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/17/1087137571/school-violence-teachers-covid
His website is full of code words we’ve learned to avoid, but here it is anyway:
https://www.coltblack.com/meet_colt
2. Jaime Brennan is our Moms For Liberty candidate, she posted a series of videos that explain her position on the issues.
If you are interested in hearing someone bash kids and promote the removal of books from the school libraries (didn’t we already solve this?), go ahead and waste 6 minutes of your life. A friend of the Yokel sent us his rendition of her campaign sign that we think you will enjoy:
https://www.brennanforboard.com
We are also adding a new Facebook Page that shows you all the horrifying things that Ms. Brennan has posted on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558619399066
3. Rayna Remondini
This lady tried last time around, and we need to reject her this time around as well. She’s a homeschooling advocate and lists on her website that she’s received the endorsement of an organization called Power 2 Parent, which is just as awful as you can imagine:
We don’t know why these homeschooling advocates are always trying to get on our public school boards, but they must be rejected at every turn.
4. Patti Lee Worsley AKA Gumption the Dragon. Yes you read that right:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDdHo_RCG3V0PSEkjoMJbvA
We also wrote about her when she defended the Scientologists when they were trying to make their fake drug rehabilitation clinic up in Thurmont:
She also writes on her website that schools should be run like businesses, which is always a turn off for us.
https://www.votewisely4worsley.com/meet_patti
UPDATE: In our original post we weren’t able to find a lot of info on Tabitha McLoughlin. After looking at this graphic designer’s nightmare of an attempt at political propaganda we’ve decided to move her to the do not vote for column.
There’s still a few more forums for you to drop in on should you like to hear the candidates for yourself. Check out the League of Women Voters website for more details:
https://my.lwv.org/maryland/frederick-county
There’s lots to avoid this election season, the orange menace is back, and Dan Cox is trying to get into Congress, but don’t underestimate the importance of these school board elections.
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