Campaign email: karen@karenyoho.com
Website: www.karenyoho.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100076189637765
Age: 66
Employment: FC Board of Education; Office Manager for Yoho Electrical Services
Education: Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from Hood College
Why are you running for the school board?
Education has always been a priority of mine. I have spent the last almost 50 years of my life focused on the welfare of students. I care about public education as a great equalizer and opportunity-builder for all. As a former classroom teacher of 25 years and a substitute teacher for 12 years prior to that time, I feel my experience of working in schools with staff and students provides a needed voice on the school board.
What makes you a good candidate for the board?
It takes time to learn what it means to be a Board of Education member. I have spent the past four years on the board during some of the most difficult years that anyone in a leadership position has had to navigate. While not all agree with the specific decisions that were made, I believe most will agree that our board listened and tried to find a middle ground that focused on our students. I care deeply about the school system, its students, and the employees, and I would like to continue to be a steward of our resources and taxpayers’ dollars as we work together to build on our successes and ameliorate our weaknesses as we create an even better FCPS.
Please name a public leader you admire and explain why.
Our current County Executive, Jan Gardner. Gardner is a good steward of the taxpayer’s dollars while providing needed services to the citizens. All three rating houses have given us a AAA rating under Gardner’s watch. Frederick is the fastest growing county in MD showing that people desire to move here. Gardner has provided some of the highest levels of education funding to help us continue to try to dig out after the damages from the 2008 recession and bare MOE (maintenance of effort) funding, where school staff positions had to be cut. I am concerned with other services such as roads, libraries, senior citizen services, etc., and Gardner has also provided for these, but education has always been my focus.
What is the most important issue facing your school board, and what would you do about it if elected?
It varies; however, I believe the one that encompasses many concerns is class size. Parents are rightly concerned. Will students get the attention they need and deserve? Staff is burdened with workload issues and basic class coverage when classes are large. For instance, if an elementary test takes 10 minutes each to grade, each group of six tests takes one hour to grade. And that is just one part of that teacher’s day. Planning for each class/group, meeting with students, grading, making parent contacts, and on and on, expands with larger classes the time it takes to do the job well and provide the best instructional program for the students. Time and money are finite resources.
How concerned are you about school safety, and what if anything should be done to improve it?
While schools are still overall one of the safest places to be, all it takes is one tragic incident to make us all feel vulnerable.
Do you have any concerns about the way history is taught in your district’s schools, and if so, what are they?
I have no concerns about the content that is taught, I just wish there was more time for teaching social studies, particularly in elementary classrooms. We need students to learn authentic and actual history, not how we would like it to have been. It also needs to be taught in an age-appropriate manner so that students can build their understanding. Many citizens believe that we could enhance our teaching of civics to enable our students to be more involved and engaged citizens in the future.
Do you think there are circumstances when books should be removed from school libraries, and if so, what kind of books should be removed?
Our media specialists have an approved system for ordering books. Recently, a high school media specialist ordered a book based on reviews. When the book arrived, the media specialist felt that the book was not age-appropriate, so it was never placed on a shelf for circulation. I have trust in our media department to make good selections based on the students in their individual buildings, the basic tenets of school librarians, and the central office director of media services.
