*** May 28, 2020: This post originally stated that Larry Pretlow is not a member of the Stevens Forest Elementary School PTA. That is not accurate, and I have updated the post with the correct information. ***
At long last, I made it through the last of Scott Ewart’s online debates for Howard County Board of Education candidates. Over the weekend, he held the final debate, for District 2. Is anybody else exhausted?
(ICYMI: my analyses of the debates for districts 3, 4, and 5.)
Having watched these debates, I wish we could do all election debates via Zoom. I mean really – is there anybody who doesn’t wish the moderators of U.S. presidential debates had a mute button handy? The added bonus is that since candidates can’t talk over each other at will, we can only watch their facial expressions and wonder what they’re thinking as others are speaking. I sure wish there had been thought bubbles above the heads of the District 2 candidates during the debate, given the shade being thrown by one candidate in particular. Whew.
James Cecil
First up is James Cecil of the Division of Student Affairs at the University of Maryland, where he supports students in their professional and leadership development. He is also committed to social justice and community service, as evidenced by his tireless work with Columbia Community Care. As a parent of a special education (SPED) child, Mr. Cecil understands the challenges faced by students, parents, and teachers in this arena. During the debate, his responses showed that he recognizes where improvements need to be made in areas such as SPED, redistricting, achievement and opportunity gaps, and other areas, while also recognizing the challenges faced in solving such monumental problems when the budget is insufficient and finite. I got a good sense of the progressive values he represents, and his testimonies at the Board of Education and County Council in support of matters such as capital and operating budgets, SPED, redistricting, and Talbott Springs Elementary School’s desperately-needed rebuild demonstrate that he walks the talk.
Antonia Barkley Watts
Biomechanical engineer and educator Antonia Barkley Watts brings an important voice to the BOE race – that of a teacher. Education experience matters on a Board of Education, and Howard County’s BOE will be losing some critical educator voices when current terms end later this year. Ms. Watts would bring the experience of a public school teacher, tutor, and adjunct professor to the dais as well as community advocacy, as her work with Oakland Mills Online and Columbia Community Care has demonstrated. During the debate, she recognized that District 2 has often been marginalized and needs a bigger voice, especially during redistricting, where crowding remains an issue in the eastern half of the county. Ms. Watts rightfully pointed out that achievement gaps and opportunity gaps are two different things, and that to achieve equity, leaders must look at the intersections of demographic groups rather than looking at each group by itself. I wholeheartedly agree.
Larry Pretlow
I am deeply troubled by Larry Pretlow’s candidacy for a number of reasons, namely: his views on public education, his behavior towards others, and his false and misleading claims about his qualifications. I’ll begin with his debate performance, then move on to the rest. Grab a phone charger and get settled in on your couch; this is going to take a while.
During the debate, Mr. Pretlow was a one-man eclipse, throwing shade at everyone and everything, from his District 2 opponents to the current Chairwoman of the Board of Education, Mavis Ellis. He had so much to say about everyone else, in fact, that he never got around to talking about himself. He did make some good points – that SPED is an equity issue (I agree), that obtaining a diagnosis is important in SPED (I agree), and that there are disparities when it comes to class placement (I agree). But he lost all credibility when he chose to blame and criticize people, most notably at the end, when he stated that because the educators on the BOE haven’t managed to close the achievement gap, what the board really needs instead of educators is a community advocate like him. I’m guessing he’s not looking to get on the Apple Ballot anytime soon.
Back in January, I engaged with Mr. Pretlow on the topic of educational equity in the Howard County School Interest Facebook group, and his views troubled me. He described the teacher’s union as a “big part of the problem,” as he believes in a community-in-education model where a committee of parents selects the educators for their school. (Yeah, that Apple Ballot is not looking good.) He suggested that private school vouchers could ease overcrowding and that partnerships with businesses could overcome our budget woes. He said he felt strongly that keeping poverty concentrated at certain schools allows resources to be targeted more effectively. Yeesh.
All of that is frightening on its own, given the research that vouchers siphon money away from public school systems while failing to improve outcomes, and that concentrated poverty has a negative effect on students and schools. Not to mention the parents-hiring-teachers model he suggested revealed a complete failure to understand public school system functioning. When I questioned the feasibility of Mr. Pretlow’s ideas, or corrected misinformation, he became imperious and condescending towards me and others in the HCSI Facebook group who also questioned him. Then he blocked me like a petulant child. And from what I understand, this is not unusual behavior from him – at all.
As a member of the Oakland Mills Village Board, Mr. Pretlow has built quite a reputation for his poor treatment of others, to include rude and combative behavior, intimidation, and bullying – and then playing the victim when called out on this behavior. He touts his Trump-like tell-it-like-it-is outspokenness, but as we’ve seen with President Trump, there is a massive difference between outspokenness and blatant disrespect. See for yourself what happened at a recent OMVB meeting when a community member took the Board to task for enabling Mr. Pretlow’s intimidating behavior. I was blown away by the irony of his making demands for respect while giving none to his fellow board members. The expressions on the faces of the other board members are quite telling. And it’s important to note that the OMVB is not the only group who has been on the receiving end of Mr. Pretlow’s wrath. (See below – warning: language.)
Finally, let’s discuss Mr. Pretlow’s qualifications for BOE. He points to his position on the OMVB as a qualification, for which I’d normally give someone credit, but his behavior both described by others and observed in the OMVB meeting makes me wonder how on Earth he would ever be able to collaborate civilly on a Board of Education where disagreement is part of the job. He has also stated that he is “involved” and/or an official member of the Stevens Forest Elementary School PTA in this questionnaire from Indivisible Maryland, this candidate forum, and this questionnaire from the People’s Voice. However, when I reached out to the SFES PTA for confirmation, they told me that while Mr. Pretlow paid for a membership in October 2019, he has never attended a PTA meeting, according to their attendance records. It’s important to note that paying $10 for a membership and being “involved” in a PTA are two different things. Finally, Mr. Pretlow has never testified before the Board of Education on any issue, and for someone who claims to be an advocate for underserved communities, he’s never testified to the BOE? On any topic? Not even the desperately needed and hard-won rebuild of Talbott Springs Elementary School in his own district? If he made false claims about his membership in the SFES PTA, how can we possibly believe his other claims about his community outreach?
I’d be remiss if I did not discuss Mr. Pretlow’s words and actions during the 2019 redistricting process and how it relates to his “advocacy” for Oakland Mills. His stance against redistricting was apparent from his social media postings, his reference to it as a “silly ass plan” at an OMVB meeting, and his participation in anti-redistricting rallies. He attacked members of his own community when he claimed that they supported redistricting because they are ashamed of their “ghetto” community. However, when the rubber met the road, Mr. Pretlow did not testify to the BOE in support of Oakland Mills; rather, he was out supporting rallies for neighborhoods in other districts, and as the redistricting process drew to a close, after River Hill, Maple Lawn, and other communities had been granted their wishes, the only solution left was for the BOE to chop up Oakland Mills and leave Oakland Mills High School, an older school in need of repairs and serving a high population of disadvantaged students, over capacity.
So much for “community advocacy.”