Supporting a diverse student population, funding older schools and helping the Howard County School Board make better use of its time are reasons several candidates joined the board race.
Paul Aliprando, Marcelino Bedolla and Donald Byrd Marston are among the 14 candidates who met the July 3 filing deadline to compete for five open seats in the fall.
“I think board members aren?t using their time efficiently,” said Aliprando, 49, a business owner and vice president of the Ellicott Mills Middle School PTA.
Aliprando said the board members should adopt a “no-nonsense” approach to discussing school issues.
He also said he would like to see the school system help students who don?t go to college develop a trade.
“We could work with local plumbing unions,” he said.
Marston, a 39-year-old hospitality manager who lives in Sykesville, said he?s concerned about the maintenance of older schools.
“I think we have to come up with some ways to make sure older schools aren?t neglected,” he said, adding he would support a dedicated funding source for them.
Helping teachers who can?t afford to live in the county is another issue Marston says he wants to address.
“I think we need to keep up with the pay of teachers in neighboring school systems,” he said.
Marcelino Bedolla, a 69-year-old Columbia resident and Baltimore City School science teacher, said the school system needs to offer more support to non-English-speaking students.
The other candidates are: Frank Aquino, Larry Cohen, Allen Dyer, Sandra French, Ellen Flynn Giles, Patricia Gordon, Joshua Kaufman, Roger Lerner, Dr. Janet Siddiqui, Peter Sola and Di Zou.
