During her campaign for school board last fall, Elkridge resident Leslie Kornreich often talked about the lack of representation on the board for schools in the northeast.
Though she lost the general election, Kornreich did not lose her passion for ensuring the board has geographical diversity.
"One of the reasons I have come out publicly in favor of dividing our board race into districts is that I feel we are lacking complete representation," she told the Howard County Board of Education Study Commission Monday, Aug. 29.
The commission was formed by County Executive Ken Ulman earlier this month to study school board structures and recommend a model that would better foster diversity on Howard's seven-member, nonpartisan board, which has no black members and no Columbia or Elkridge residents.
Any recommended changes to the Howard's board, which is elected at large (county-wide), would have to be approved by the Maryland General Assembly.
"I can see that (the current model) worked when Howard County was maybe a quarter or a third of the size it is right now, but I think it has outgrown that system," Kornreich said.
Kornreich was one of only two people who testified at the commission's third meeting — the second with time allotted for public comment. The other was David Rodriguez, who serves as a board member of Conexiones, a Howard County advocacy group for Hispanic students.
He urged the commission, which has to make a recommendation to Ulman by Sept. 26, to ask for more time, if needed.
"I think you are far from being ready," Rodriguez said. "I don't think you have all the facts."
At the meeting, the commission received two presentations.
Howard County Public School System staff used assessment and dropout data to show that the county has made progress in narrowing the achievement gap between racial and ethnic groups.
The second was by Kathryn Blumsack, director of board development for the Maryland Association of Boards of Education, who presented data on school boards across the country and around the state.
Of the roughly 90,000 school board members who serve across the country, she said, the majority are white men, nearly 55 percent are age 50 or older and two-thirds receive no compensation.
In Maryland, Blumsack said, boards vary in size from five to 11 members, in age from 19 to 80 (average age of 53), and in compensation, from $0 to $22,500 annually.
Board structures also vary, she added. Five jurisdictions have appointed members; one has a hybrid of appointed and elected members; seven have members elected at large; five have members elected by district; and six have members elected county-wide but for both at-large and district seats.
The commission will start discussing the pros and cons of the various models at its next meeting, to be held Sept. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Gateway Building, 6751 Columbia Gateway Drive.