Editor’s note: This is part of a series of stories asking candidates for the Carroll County Board of Education to discuss issues important to county residents. Muri Dueppen, Amanda Jozkowski, Greg Malveaux and Kristen Zihmer are on the ballot for two open seats on Carroll’s nonpartisan school board. Their answers are in their own words and have not been edited.
Career and vocational programs have been growing in popularity in Carroll County, but each year students are turned away from programs at the Carroll County Career and Technology Center due to limited space.
A recent $74 million renovation project that added 108,205 square feet to the facility aimed to improve the quality of the programs there, rather than raising the school’s capacity, Superintendent Cynthia McCabe said in February. The center, which opened in 1971, was designed for 380 students in 19 programs and currently educates about 800 students in 24 programs per semester. Instruction at the center continued during construction.
Carroll County paid about $34 million of the total cost, while the state contributed nearly $40 million, according to the system’s capital budget for fiscal 2024. The four-year project was not included in the capital budget for fiscal 2025.
To enroll in a career program, a student must have a minimum attendance of 94%, a weighted GPA of at least a C (2.0), be in grade 11, and have completed other program-specific prerequisites and career planning, according to the system’s program of high school studies, although students who do not meet these requirements may still be considered.
A mathematical scoring determines which students are accepted into career and tech center programs, but Director of Curriculum and Instruction Steve Wernick told the school board last month that a question was recently added to the application asking students how they plan to apply skills developed in the program to their career.
New statewide standards for assessing a student’s college and career readiness require that a student demonstrate certain academic proficiencies by the end of their 10th grade year, in order to access college-level classes and career programs. According to a June plan to implement new Blueprint for Maryland’s Future initiatives in Carroll County, the school system aims to continue providing career and technical education to students who do not meet the new standards.
The Blueprint implementation plan indicates that the new standards fail to recognize the needs of “more traditionally” career-oriented students, as many of those who are successful in the workforce now would have failed to meet the new standard, according to the implementation plan.
What is the best way to determine which students are accepted into career and technology education programs when the number of spaces is limited?
Dueppen: While there is no perfect way to tackle this dilemma, I think there are some changes that would make the process fairer. A one-size-fits-all rubric that heavily weights performance in advanced courses should be reconsidered for programs geared towards students who are job-bound (as opposed to college-bound). For those programs that are the most in-demand, I suggest a hybrid approach so that some percentage of spots be reserved for acceptance via a lottery system presuming all applicants meet minimum academic and other eligibility requirements.
Jozkowski: Career and technical education programs offer an excellent opportunity to prepare students for a wide range of futures — whether they pursue a trade, college, or other post-secondary options. Currently, our system of admission to these programs is driven by a points-based rubric, which often privileges academic grades without fully considering the specific career pathways students want to follow. For instance, a student interested in welding may not need to be judged by the same criteria as a student aiming for a biomedical program. One potential solution is to modify the rubric to reflect the unique demands of each program, allowing students to demonstrate interest and aptitude in a way that aligns with their goals. However, it’s important to recognize that no system will be perfect due to limited space and the shifting interest in/popularity of specific programs. Expanding access to career and technical education programs must remain a priority for the Board, in particular because these programs are needed to meet workforce demands in our community and to ease the burden of higher education and trade credentialing costs for families.
Malveaux: We need to revisit the variables we use to select our students into the Career and Technology Center. We need to rely on more than GPA and attendance to accept students. How can we have students who are not at the top of the class included — those without a high GPA or stellar attendance record? The students who are not on a college-bound track also need access to a trade and career, and into these courses. We need to expand how we can incorporate more people into the Career and Technology Center programs. The application and acceptance process should be revisited. I would like to help come up with a viable solution for this issue if on the Board.
Zihmer: I believe the current merit-based scoring system utilizing student GPA and attendance history is the fairest way to award placements into this program. I would also support future expansion of this program in a fiscally disciplined manner, to potentially accommodate more students.
The election
All four candidates advanced through the primary election May 14. Though the school board is considered nonpartisan, Jozkowski and Dueppen have received funding from Democrats and left-leaning organizations, while Malveaux and Zihmer have received funding from Republicans and right-leaning ones.
Dueppen, of Mount Airy, and Jozkowski, of Eldersburg, are running together as a slate and established a joint campaign finance committee called the Slate for Student Success, according to a news release.
Both Malveaux, of Hampstead, and Zihmer, of Westminster, have been endorsed by Carroll County Moms for Liberty, the group that asked that dozens of books be removed from Carroll County Public Schools libraries.
Jozkowski placed fifth out of six candidates in the 2022 race for three school board seats. She earned 28,216 votes (15.68%) in that election. Dueppen ran for the Board of Education in 2018, and garnered 4,523 votes in the primary election, the eighth-highest total among 11 candidates. Only the top six candidates in that race advanced to the general election. Neither Malveaux nor Zihmer has run for Carroll County Board of Education in the past.
Early voting in Carroll County begins Thursday and concludes on Oct. 31. Voting takes place from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. at the Westminster Senior Center, South Carroll Senior Center in Sykesville and Coppermine Pantherplex in Hampstead. Information about polling places is also available online, at https://voterservices.elections.maryland.gov/PollingPlaceSearch. For information about submitting a ballot by mail, visit: https://elections.carrollcountymd.gov/GetMailBallot.aspx. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5.
Have a news tip? Contact Thomas Goodwin Smith at thsmith@baltsun.com.