ELECTION 2024: Brandie Edelen makes pitch for adding an educator to the St. Mary’s School Board

CANDIDATE FORUM – Potomac Gardens Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, 5:30 pm, sponsored by Republican Women

St. Mary’s County Board of Education Election

BY KEN ROSSIGNOL
THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY

LEONARDTOWN, MD—St. Mary’s County school board candidate Brandie Edelen was chasing votes at the four-day St. Mary’s County Fair, held from Sept. 19 to Sept. 22, 2024, when she stopped to answer questions about her campaign. In an interview, Edelen stressed that she would be the only educator on the school board if voters decide to elect her to the at-large position.

Currently on the school board, Mary Washington, who was first elected in 1996 when President Bill Clinton’s affair with his intern, Monica Lewinsky, was still a secret, is not an educator. Washington worked as a staffer in the office of a military school in Germany, where her husband was stationed.

David Drys of Hollywood says he has identified numerous pockets of funds hidden in the school budget that defy explanation and will seek accountability for spending.  In an interview, Drys stated that his two children are recent graduates of St. Mary’s public schools, and they received a good foundation for their lives, but schools can be improved in many ways. 

Washington is running for another term, which would propel her into a third decade of attending school board meetings and offering congratulations to everyone who appears before the board and failing to hold anyone responsible or accountable, such as the recent debacle where Esperanza Middle School was determined to have a severe mold problem the day before school started. When the Board of Education received a report from the maintenance supervisor, the board members acted as if he had won the Nobel Peace Prize for Sudden Shipping of students to temporary school rooms instead of reprimanding him for allowing the mold problem to go undetected for so long and not having a plan for maintenance of school buildings that is effective. Had the mold been noticed, remediation could have been accomplished in the summer when the building had much lesser use. 

Incumbent School Board Member Cathy Allen, who has been in office since 2000, also wants a winning streak to the Moon. Yet, she voted for a million-dollar hot dog stand and to spend over eleven million on artificial turf for sports fields instead of metal detectors at the front door of the high schools – and even today ignores the problem when a gun was found in January in Great Mills High School.

Elena Brewer is campaigning hard to win the seat and retire Allen. Brewer is an educator, and her children attend St. Mary’s Public Schools. This is how she became aware of the indoctrination of children in St. Mary’s public schools to leftist ideology. She should know what that is like, as she grew up in the former Soviet Union.

Ironically, even though Allen and Washington are cordial when campaigning and at board meetings, police were called to break up an altercation between them at a board meeting, proving that students aren’t the only ones who get in tussles.

SCHOOL BOARD CANDIDATE ANGELA WATHEN ENDORSED EDELEN

Edelen’s point that there is no educator on the board is correct, as current member James Davis, formerly an adjunct professor at the College of Southern Maryland, will leave the board in December. For about twenty years, Dr. Sal Raspa, a former teacher, principal, and administrator, was chairman of the Board of Education.

Current members include Karin Bailey, an accountant; Cathy Allen, a nurse; and Dorothy Andrews, who described herself as a paraeducator when running for election to the board. 

Edelen is opposed in the General Election by twenty-two-year-old Josh Guy. Guy is unmarried, has no children, and is active in political and civic activities outside of his career, beginning with a post in the court clerk’s office in La Plata. Guy is a student of history, especially the history of St Mary’s County politics and government, immersing himself in details of county government actions over the past thirty years. Thus, his knowledge of politics makes him a formidable candidate despite having no experience in education beyond being a substitute school teacher. Guy’s campaign could result in him winning a post due to his self-taught advanced degree in the study of politics.