Seven months of diligent campaigning paid off for Courtney Watson last night, when voters gave her a solid win over her opponent, Barry Tevelow, in the race for the single open Howard County Board of Education seat.

"I'm very excited that the margin is what it is, and it just goes to show that my message has gotten across to the electorate and they believe what I'm saying and what I want to do," Watson said.

"Now I'm looking forward to taking a couple weeks off and spending some time with my husband and children, regrouping and then coming back and working really hard to solve some of these issues with rest of the board."

Tevelow could not be reached for comment. Watson took two-thirds of the vote.

Watson focused her platform on increasing collaboration between the community and the board, raising student achievement and school equity.

But her first order of business in office will be improving long range planning -- particularly redistricting enrollment projections.

"It's a major issue, and we're not really focusing enough resources on it," Watson said.

Watson will take the place of the vacating board chairman, Jane B. Schuchardt, who voted for Watson.

"I think she'll be good for us." Schuchardt said. "She's going to make people accountable, there's no question about it. She'll keep everybody on their toes."

Schuchardt said the board needs more parental input and needs to continue its work on closing the achievement gap to bring schools up to state standards. She is hoping the new board member will further those goals and help make the group more cohesive.

They need to get to know the other board members and their reasoning for making the decisions they do," Schuchardt said. "Sometimes we don't understand where each other is coming from, and we need to improve that communication and get good at understanding [one another]."

The county's school board is made up of five at-large elected members.

Watson's tenure -- recently changed from six years to four -- will begin after a mid-December swearing-in.

"I hope people will be patient with me because this is a new job and there are so many issues," Watson said. "And, I hope that they will understand that we can't fix everything overnight. But we can start working toward solutions on a lot of these things now."

The next board opening is not expected before 2004.