Even though each day seems like an eternity lately, next year will be here before we know it!
And now for the bad news…..
Apologies all around!
Heather Fletcher is running again. If you forgot who this now twice failed candidate is, don’t worry we’ll remind you. First let’s hand her the microphone to see how y’all like her:
This post will also serve as your reminder that all of us like-minded people need to vote for the SAME number of candidates as there are openings on the board. Just look at all we’ve had to put up with because of Black and Brennan so far! #learnfromthepast!
Several alert readers messaged your Lady Yokels to instruct us to tune in to the board meeting. Colt Black was getting his ass handed to him for his insensitive, and frankly stupid, comments about some students in our schools. We encourage all who didn’t see it, to go back and watch it as soon as it’s posted on their site.
You’ll have to mire through Heather Fletcher telling you in the name of Jesus Christ to get rid of all the porn in the school, and suffer through Tom Neumark mansplaining the budget…but it’s worth it. Because, more importantly, you’ll learn from the kids how we are going to survive this Trump hell for the next four years.
The students who came to speak during public comment made it clear to Mr. Black and the world of the impact of Policy 443. They spoke to how much better school was for both them and their friends as a result of this policy. They made it known that they would not accept any hint of discrimination in their school system.
Then came the board member comments, and we have to say that the students really knew what they were doing when they elected Elijah Steele as their representative. Mr. Steele constructed a defense of his fellow students against people like Colt Black and Jaime Brennan by using student testimony and actual facts to support why this policy matters. He reminded them not to bring their political agenda into the school system! Something they love to accuse others of, but apparently don’t see in themselves.
Afterwards, the adults on the board gave their comments. Colt Black chose to be sarcastic about his critics and then mad about the budget instead of taking any time to reflect on his behavior. Jaime Brennan wants to know why we can’t all just come together after all the hateful things she and Black have said. And Nancy Allen, who wasn’t going to speak and probably shouldn’t have, goes off on a rant about how poorly treated both she and Colt Black have been because of the horrible and hateful things they said! Can’t these people get a break and spew their hate without any repercussions?! Geeze!
Imagine that!
The other board members really stepped up to the plate and stood up for all of the students in our school system. Karen Yoho reminded us of the discussion in 2016 when Policy 443 came about. It was because of students! Mr. Rose threw some Southern shade Colt Black’s way and made it known that he would no longer tolerate any bashing of kids at board meetings. Board members Gallagher and Monier both voiced their support for policies for that protect kids. These are the people that make our board and our school system better.
What Black, Brennan, and Allen need to realize is that they are there for the kids, all of them. They and their followers can put forth all of the hyperbolic “the sky is falling” bullshit they want about what this policy “could” do, but the truth is they are wrong. There has not been a single incident of any of this propaganda happening in FCPS. Since this is an FCPS policy that only applies in FCPS, that is all that matters. If you cannot prove harm, then you don’t have a leg to stand on. What we do see over and over again is student after student testifying to how much this policy has helped them at school. That’s all that matters. Leave these kids alone, leave this policy alone, and let’s move on to more important issues.
Thank you to everyone who reminded your despondent Lady Yokels how we are going to survive this new fresh hell we find ourselves in. These kids and Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde have reminded us how to move on by standing up for what is morally right in this world:
We won’t let these people hurt the ones that we love.
We’ve been through a lot this year Yokels! But like the dumpster above we are going to have to find some way to plant a dumb little smile on our faces and solider on! You may see a pattern with our top five posts this year! Coming it at #5:
5. Let’s Armchair Quarterback Those Primary Election Results:
In this post we had a lot to celebrate, most especially that Dan Cox got knocked out in the primary! Towards the end we had a warning about the school board election results that was not heeded by enough folks!
4. A Yokel Stroll Down Memory Lane! Let’s Check in With That County Council.
In the midst of the summer heat, we decided to go back to our roots and watch a county council meeting. We had pulled away from doing so after Kirby, Billy, and Tony (Maybe we should think twice before voting for people whose names end in Y- except you Jerry!) got sent back home! It wasn’t a pleasant experience, so we haven’t been back. Though recently we’ve been alerted to some of the Frederick City Council meetings and we may have to pay more attention to those as there is an election next year!
And for our number one spot, the man whose letter to editor about his loss to Jan spurred the creation of this blog, occupies our most read post of the year: Blaine Young Can’t Seem to Keep Himself Out of Trouble:
We looked at West Virginia’s case search and his trial date is in 4 days:
Did you notice the theme? We need to do a better job of only supporting and promoting the exact number of candidates as there are open seats on the board of education. Some people are starting to get it:
So unless we want a Board of Education that will support Donald Trump’s agenda of destroying the public education system, we need to be sure everyone understands how these elections work!
We wish all of our readers a peaceful holiday week and as good a 2025 that we can muster through!
We are going to try our best to do just that for you today!
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.
We went in alphabetical order, not by who we liked the most.
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!
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.
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:
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.
Yeah, we had to read through that a few times as well.
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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
In the 9 years we’ve been doing this, we’ve tried to keep our focus on the local scene. There’s only so many hours in the day and so much sanity your Lady Yokels can expend, but sometimes we do need to expand our geographic purview. Today we need to talk about some legislation that’s made its way to Annapolis. For as Tip O’Neill liked to say, “All politics is local.”
We’ll start with HB0047, which thankfully (for the second time) was voted unfavorably in committee yesterday. However, just because it was shot down a second time, doesn’t mean that these folks won’t keep coming back. Let’s explore the bill together:
ScreenshotScreenshotScreenshotScreenshot
That may take a couple of readings to really digest. It’s not only a very discriminatory and nasty bill, it’s also an enormous government overreach! Did you notice that this bill applies not only to public schools, but also to private schools and intramural sports?! Which party is supposedly the party of big government again? It’s so amusing to us how situational some people’s values are!
Besides trying to hurt kids, we really aren’t sure!!!
If you follow our Facebook page, you saw the link to this NY Times article we shared this morning:
What kind of world are we living in folks?
The next bill, HB0025 (at least as far as we know as of this morning) has not been voted on just yet. But someone is happy about the prospect of it passing!
Trying to have banned? You were rejected and will continue to be rejected!
Let’s explore the language of this very bad, vague bill!
ScreenshotScreenshot
Who gets to define sexually explicit materials? Cindy? Here’s the rating system that most of these groups are using these days from the website, https://booklooks.org/ratings-system:
We have never had such a hateful reaction to a chart before! Who defines moderate, explicit, excessive, mild, aberrant, obscene?! Who has the right to tell the rest of us what our children should read? Where’s the evidence of harm in a 3-5 rated book? What studies do they have? What the hell is wrong with these people? Man, we don’t like to get all worked up this early in the morning!
At the bottom of this post we are going to give you a nice list so we can all email our local delegation to make sure they don’t vote for this very bad bill should it come before the entire delegation. Let’s divert, for just a moment, on why it’s so important that kids and adults read books:
See what we highlighted there?
Maybe we should put forth a bill that everyone has to read at least for an hour a day! That’s probably the best way to fix this problem.
It’s time we get back to the election, because how the hell did it sneak up on us so fast?! Today’s post is dedicated to twice defeated BoE candidate Cindy Rose.
Just this week, a second BoE forum was held, sponsored by the PTA (yeah, she didn’t show up to the first one either). She was called out on a local conservative page by someone, who has been sounding all too rational to us lately, for not showing up! Behold her reply:
WOW!!!! So, the PTA are the mean kids?! And it’s beneath her dignity to show up at either forum to express her beliefs? She doesn’t really want to win, does she? Later, on that same thread she posts her Curriculum Vitae for the board of ed position:
We guess she forgot to list what she would do to address these issues!
And last, but certainly not least, here’s a 3 minute video of her making public comment at the last BOE meeting:
Okay, first of all this should have been what was beneath her dignity. No law changes your beliefs! It just guarantees that you cannot discriminate against someone BECAUSE of your beliefs. Really people we don’t need a Billy Shreve -like character on the BoE. Make sure you make your voice heard on November 6.
frederick local yokel 