Editor’s note: Bethesda Beat is running a series of profiles on Montgomery County Board of Education candidates running in the Nov. 8 general election. Today’s profiles focus on District 3 candidates Scott Joftus and Julie Yang. All candidates were asked the same questions. Some answers were shortened for length and clarity.
Two former educators and Montgomery County Public Schools parents are running for the District 3 seat on the Board of Education.
Scott Joftus, 54, is the founder and president of FourPoint Education Partners. He is an adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Education and a former elementary school teacher. He is the father of an MCPS graduate and a high school junior.
Joftus was appointed to the board in December 2021 following the unexpected passing of board member Pat O’Neill in September 2021.
Challenger Julie Yang, 52, is a former data analyst and college and career counselor for Montgomery County Public Schools. She also spent seven years as a classroom teacher. She is the mother of two MCPS graduates.
Scott Joftus
Who are you, what do you do, and why are you running?
When Pat O’Neill passed away unexpectedly, the board put out a call for applications to fill her the rest of her term, which is just this year. So several people encouraged me to put in my letter and resume — I’d never thought about running for any elected office. But I have a lot of experience in education. I was selected unanimously to complete her term and the reason I was selected is because I’ve been in public education, working to improve outcomes especially for underserved populations for my entire life.
I taught elementary school in Brooklyn, New York, and Los Angeles. My graduate degrees are in public policy and education policy, and I’ve worked in education policy research, advocacy and consulting. And then 18 years ago, I founded a small business focused on advising superintendents and school boards on issues related to equity, strategic planning and school improvement. About 12 years ago I became an adjunct professor at George Washington University Graduate School of Education where I got my doctorate. And so in the fall, I teach education leadership, and in the spring, I teach program evaluation to master candidates for the master’s of education policy. I felt like my experience of perspective was really important, and that’s why I’m running. I don’t think that experience or perspective is currently on the board, and I think it’s really critical in terms of helping the system address the many challenges that we’re facing,
What are your thoughts on financial equity in MCPS and making sure all schools have equal resources?
So I actually don’t think the answer is equal resources. I actually am a proponent of the term equity, giving resources that are necessary to serve the student populations that they serve. So we know that schools serving higher concentrations, for example, of low-income students or students with special needs, or gifted and talented students require additional resources. Montgomery County Public Schools has actually been pretty good about doing that over the last several years. There are some things that we need to think about in terms of how we allocate resources in a way that’s a little bit more systematic and ensures the types of equitable results that we’re looking for.
What we haven’t done yet is really tailor the resources specifically to the students that are in the school, and that’s called student-weighted funding. It gives particular weights to students based on their characteristics. For example, a student coming from a family that receives free and reduced price meals would receive an additional weight over a student who does not have [those needs]. The idea is that you’re directing resources very explicitly based on the number of kids with particular learning obstacles in order to best serve their needs.
How can the school system make up for loss of learning during the pandemic?
On the investment side, I think the district has done some really, really good things. There’s been research on effective early literacy reading that most districts in the country have ignored. And it basically comes down to it’s called structured literacy, which is teachings of phonics and decoding skills. Last year MCPS started piloting structured literacy in nine or 10 schools and got really good results. And so I’m really proud that the school system is pushing this out down to all elementary schools. So one of the first things I think we need to do as a system is to make sure that structured literacy is taught effectively, and it’s gonna take time, right? You don’t just flip a switch and have, you know, over 100 elementary schools doing this well, but by putting that in place is the right start. And now as a board, we need to make sure that the administration is implementing that effectively.
I think the other things we’ve done which are really important are to invest a lot of resources in things like tutoring. Mental health is a crisis and kids are not going to learn effectively if they’re coming to school and struggling to deal with trauma. And so we’ve invested very heavily in that, but I think a lot of the next steps are going to be to make sure that the school system is implementing those things effectively and not just waiting for outcome data, but really creating a continuous improvement process along the way.
What would you like to see done to improve student mental health support and services?
Students can’t learn if they’re experiencing trauma. And staff are not going to come as their best selves if they’re experiencing trauma. This past year, we invested a significant amount of resources in counselors, social workers in an approach called Community Schools, which is required by the [Blueprint for Maryland’s Future] and basically means that we provide wraparound support in the Title 1 schools. The county has invested in wellness centers in the high schools. So those are all excellent investments. But I can’t emphasize enough that when we’re trying to put significant resources to address a very serious problem in a very complicated system that is not coherent, we’re not going to make the difference that we hoped for, and we obviously know, but everybody wants this to work.
Candidates for the board talk about fighting for mental health service and investments and I agree. But the fact is, right now we have budgeted more resources than we have staff to fill those positions. So it’s true that we need to continue looking at investments and looking at how we address the staff shortages that are a national problem right now. But it’s also important that we’re really clear about what we need.
What are your thoughts on implementing protections for LGBTQ students in MCPS?
I think this is a board and administration that is absolutely committed to protecting the human rights of students from different races, different gender identities and sexual orientations, and I’m extremely proud of that. To me, it goes back to implementation. We need to make this a priority, protecting the rights of LGBTQ students and staff and also implementing the recommendations from the antiracism audit, but we need to do it in a very strategic way. And again, to me that means identifying two or three key priorities that we can manage in a given year. We can’t do everything all at once. So we need to be very clear about what are two or three key initiatives and priorities that we’re going to put in place, and then we need to absolutely track how we’re doing with them, identify challenges that are unquestionably going to come along, revisit our approach, make changes as necessary, and then continue to hold everybody, including ourselves, accountable for making sure that we’re getting the improvement that we’re that we’re looking for.
How do you view the school’s efforts at recruiting teachers during the labor shortage?
I think MCPS has done well relative to other school districts. I think we’ve done a really great job and I think that the HR team deserves a ton of credit for that. That being said, I feel like the school system, and this is true of other school systems, really needs to rethink the teacher and principal positions in particular. There are surveys that are carried out by Gallup that show the national decline in morale, especially among teachers prior to the pandemic. The pandemic only exacerbated this. To me, we’re never going to solve this problem completely until we find a way to bring joy back into the classroom and the school folks go into teaching because they want to make a difference in kids almost universally. And I think one of the biggest issues is that is not felt right now. I think there’s this feeling that we need to get kids ready for tests to have high test scores and that we need to comply with a lot of state and federal requirements — all of which is true. But as a system we need to manage that so that all of that burden is not falling on teachers and principals and that they can find the joy of teaching and serving the needs of the whole child that comes to us.
What do you personally see as the top issues affecting the school system, and what do you want to do to make change or support existing policies?
I have four priorities. One is to address the loss of trust between the community and MCPS. Number two is to address the mental health crisis that we’re facing with both our students and staff. Third is to address the loss of learning, especially in the areas of reading and math resulting from the pandemic but also acknowledging that we’ve had significant gaps and achievements that have been long-standing. And then fourth is fostering a coherent system because in my view, none of those other things happen until we as a system are very, very clear about what our high-leverage strategies are, how we’re going to track and support implementation, and how we’re going to report on that information to our public in a way that they feel they are being heard.
Julie Yang
Who are you, what do you do, and why are you running?
I’ve been an educator for about 20 years. I have been a teacher, an instructional data analyst, and a college and career counselor. My focus has always been on initiatives to remove barriers and connect the families with the systems – for example, SAT initiatives, career exploration initiatives and career days. And the end result is a double-digit increase in college applications and acceptances and much better career outcomes for our graduates. I am a mom, I have lived here 19 years and I raised both of my kids here in the county. I got involved with the PTAs and then that led me to collaborate with a nonprofit initiative to connect special ed families with special ed resources. I serve on the board of The Arc of Montgomery County, I’ve collaborated with [the] Hispanic and African American chambers of commerce to start education legislative agendas and I started [the] Asian Pacific Student Achievement Action [Group].
I’m running to make a change. In the school building, I could tell our students have mental health challenges, I could tell we have staff shortages. I realized we need people on the board who know what’s happening in our schools, and have real experience to be able to advocate for our students to make the decisions that impact our students and their families.
What are your thoughts on financial equity in MCPS and making sure all schools have equal resources?
I come from an economically disadvantaged background – I grew up with four people in one room, no kitchen, no water. For me, education is the greatest equalizer. That’s why I decided to go into education, and I fully believe your ZIP code should not decide your academic outcome or path. So I talk about really removing barriers for students to assess opportunity. First of all, we need to provide mental health support for our students, so that they are ready to learn. Second thing is for our students that are experiencing hardships, we really need to look at collaborating with nonprofit government agencies to provide wraparound services so that they are ready to learn. With equal opportunity, we need to get everyone ready for school, including universal pre-K. It is also time that we do a comprehensive review in our system to see what courses are offered at what schools, what enrichment programs are offered at what schools so that we can place our programs and resources in every school. And also we have to have a culture of openness. We need to collaborate with nonprofits and with government agencies because mental health doesn’t only happen 9 to 5 Monday through Friday. There are needs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
How can the school system make up for loss of learning during the pandemic?
We had a huge learning disruption. We have been back to the school building for about a year, we have minimal improvements in the secondary level, we have not recovered much in our elementary level.First of all, we need all the mental health support and wraparound services. Then we need to bring rigor, a high expectation back into our teaching and instruction with adequate support. Most of the adequate support can include online tutoring, after school tutoring, summer schools, virtual or in person. We need to support more programs like the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) program and give kids a clear pathway, give kids hands-on experience, internship experience, so that we have excitement about learning. We need to galvanize the students and staff and get them excited about learning again.
What would you like to see done to improve student mental health support and services?
In the last couple of years, we lost quite a number of students to suicide. Now we have the 988 National Suicide and Crisis Hotline. In the short term, let’s get that number on the pack of every middle and high school student’s ID card so it’s readily available, they can seek help in a crisis. Also, we know kids talk to kids more, their best friend, another kid. We need to train peer leaders and help facilitate peer counseling group clubs for every middle and high school. Our Minds Matter has programs for high school kids and Active Minds has programs for middle school. So let’s collaborate and do that.
In the long term, we need to make mental health issues a permanent agenda item for our Board of Education so there are no more patchwork, Band-Aid solutions. We need to have a long-term proactive solution in budget and policy and we need to look at everything through a mental health lens. But more concretely, we evaluate all the national, state and local school assessments and make sure our students are not overburdened with assessments that do not impact their instruction and reflect their learning in schools. We also need to decrease the student to counselor ratio. We have 500 or more students assigned to one counselor at some schools – you’ve got to be kidding. Another thing is the diversity of our staff matters. If children can see people that look like them, it’s a big help for them to embrace their culture, their identity, and that is a big boost to our mental health. When we talk about mental health, a healthy workforce is also essential to deliver quality education. So let’s look at our MCPS Employee Assistance Program. Are we using it the way it’s supposed to be used? How is it working? Is it meeting the needs of our staff? All these things are important.
What are your thoughts on implementing protections for LGBTQ students in MCPS?
I’m a mother of a child who is LGBTQ.I believe our schools should be a safe space for our students. And at the local level, the development of students’ identity and the support that’s needed is intricate, important work for our administrators and staff on campus so students are in a warm, supportive, accepting and respectful environment.
Our curriculum needs to reflect everyone’s experience, reflect on the experience of our historically oppressed communities, reflect the diversity of our family structures, and reflect our students’ identities. We need to look at: Do we have stories about LGBTQ communities? Do we have role models for our historically oppressed communities?
How do you view the school’s efforts at recruiting teachers during the labor shortage?
Teachers do not come into the field to become rich. That’s not why we came into education, so no amount of salary will recruit and retain our teachers. We need an attitude of gratitude. Our board and school system need to express their appreciation for our staff. We need to respect our staff by including them in conversation and decision-making early. We need to have channels for feedback or suggestions early. When our teachers leave, we need to have an exit interview, and really be transparent with those, and find out why our teachers leave, and address the issues that come up. What can we be doing better?
I want to be a little bit more aggressive with the Grow Your Own program [recruiting MCPS students to be teachers after graduation] and with providing tuition incentives with Montgomery College and Universities at Shady Grove teacher certification programs. We also need to think about job sharing, which is totally possible. In high school, for example, one teacher can teach three algebra classes, and another can teach another three more. So I think with the attitude of gratitude, involving teachers more, being aggressive with Grow Your Own, and coming up with strategies of transparency for why our teachers leave, I think we can do a better job.
What do you personally see as the top issues affecting the school system, and what do you want to do to make change or support existing policies?
Mental health, mental health, mental health is number one. Next is the rigor of our programs. That depends on whether we have a robust workforce and the open-mindedness to collaborate and bring programs in and work with the community. The last issue is communication and community engagement.
After the safety incidents at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School and [Col. Zadok] Magruder High School, we’ve learned we need to do better with communication. We need to meet the community where they are and truly understand people’s needs in that kind of crisis situation. People want to know every 30 seconds what’s going on. Tell parents every 30 minutes we have an update, you can be even brief and even say “we don’t have new developments, stay tuned. Next update is in 30 minutes.” People will know what to expect now.
I have run a grassroots campaign and I believe that is the best way to do community engagement. The other day, I was on the campaign trail and I met a parent who said, “Julie, do you know how sugary our school breakfast is?” and that prompted me to look at the school menus. When we are in the community, we will not miss important issues that matter to our community.
Early voting for the general election is Oct. 27 through Nov. 3. Mail-in ballots can be cast through the mail or at more than 50 ballot drop boxes countywide.