Ethan Loewen
Campaign email: e.loewen25@yahoo.com
Age: 47
Employment: I am. I don’t want to give out more personal information than what’s on the file. You know what the Board of Elections has.
Education: I have some college. I’ve technically I finished three years of college and it was in health care administration.
Why are you running for the school board?
I have a fairly unique set of experiences and skills that are well-rounded for the school board. One, as a manager, I deal with what it is that is needed: the character traits, the skills for people coming out of school in order to be good employees. And I am a financial advisor. So, part of what that deals with is being aware of the changing economy and the skills of the future. And then the other thing is, I was a child with learning disabilities and also some behavioral issues. And then my children were on the exact opposite end of the spectrum: they were in the gifted and talented programs. And the largest portion of my family actually are Hispanics. I have family members that have dealt with coming to America not speaking English as they entered the schools, another hot button topic.
What makes you a good candidate for the board?
Well, the other thing is over the years, I dealt with a lot of teachers and administrators throughout Maryland throughout various states. For years, I’ve been doing that. And so, I get kind of a regular set of feedback from those individuals. And so, I also have a wide perspective, in that regard, with what’s going on in the industry, in different school districts, in different states. And, you know, so I have a constant concern about that. So, it’s really all of those skills combined.
Please name a public leader you admire and explain why.
Well, there are many I do like, but my personal favorites are (the late U.S. senator from Arizona) John McCain and General Colin Powell (the late Secretary of State under President George W. Bush). Obviously part of that is because when a lot of my social and political identity was being developed, they were very prominent, but those are probably the two that I would say the most. And it’s because they had standards. I’m also a veteran, they obviously are veterans. They were very strong leaders. They were very flexible thinkers. And they also understood the American ideals. And they did a very good job of guiding America in the right direction.
What is the most important issue facing your school board, and what would you do about it if elected?
Equity is the biggest issue. The problem with equity is that it’s very much misunderstood. They divide everyone up into groups based on race, gender, sexual orientation. Certain groups are portrayed as being victims, while other groups are portrayed as being, quote, “privileged.” With my learning disability, they have a name for me called neurodivergent. I received the assistance I needed. It wasn’t easy. Over a period of a couple of years, it worked very well. The thing is that when I read how equity ideology is applied to the children with my problems of this generation, it would not have helped me at all. It actually would have hurt because it’s discouraging, because it deprives kids of being in control of their destinies. That classification of individuals is very problematic.
How concerned are you about school safety, and what if anything should be done to improve it?
Obviously, the physical safety of children is the number one priority of the Board of Education. So in that sense, you know, it’s my number one priority. There’s a lot that is already being done. There are cameras all over the schools and there’s a command center so if ever there is an event, all the cameras come on and there’s immediate communication with the police. No doors are left unlocked. This is one of the first things I would educate myself on, but at the moment, I would say that I feel confident that a good job is being done. The biggest thing is to make sure that we don’t do what other school districts have done and remove Student Resource Officers from campus.
Do you have any concerns about the way history is taught in your district’s schools, and if so, what are they?
The statement that equity ideologists make is children need to see their ethnicity, their groups, represented and presented. They need to see X number of African Americans or X number of Latinos mentioned. The problem is that’s not what history is about. History is about the events that shaped our culture, that shaped our legal system. So you’re primarily going to be talking Western Europeans for a good part of American History. So what equity ideology does is it basically ignores one of the fundamental reasons of why history is taught. And it tries to replace it with what they believe is psychologically helpful – but it’s not helpful at all. And that’s why there’s tons of parents, even non-white parents, showing up to school boards saying you can’t teach this stuff to my child.
Do you think there are circumstances when books should be removed from school libraries, and if so, what kind of books should be removed?
Yes, it’s age old and and and is expected to be done. In this county, there are books that parents want to be removed. I believe there’s a list that various parents have put together of like 40 books. I don’t have a view on those books, per se. but we should initiate the process to review the books. What the complaints from the parents revolve around is two items. One is that there are books in the libraries that are blatantly pornographic. There’s even a couple of books that have pictures as X rated as you can get. And the other thing is some of the books portray pedophilia in a sympathetic light. If how the parents present them is shown to be true, then yes, they should be removed. There’s plenty of phenomenal books that can replace any number of books that may need to be removed.
