Basic Information
Email Yang4education@gmail.com
Website www.Julieyang.org
Twitter @JulieYangMoCo
Questions & Responses (All Candidates)
1 – What lessons learned do you have since the start of the pandemic?
The pandemic taught us several lessons:
- a. Mental health support needs to be student-centered and focus on prevention. What we need is long-term, proactive solutions and move away from patchwork solutions and last-minute budget requests.
- b. Community engagement needs to be ongoing and we need to meet the MCPS community where they are.
- c. We (MCPS and HHS ) must do a better job in the future with more consistency in decision making and keeping parents informed on closing, mask wearing, etc.
2 – If you could go back and do one thing differently from what was done in the last two years in Montgomery County what would you change?
Better communication with all stakeholders about the decisions being made that
impact the day-to-day school experiences of students and staff. For example…..
- Status of individual schools related to covid
- Mandatory vs optional mask wearing
- Testing availability
- If schools are being closed, notification the night before
3 – What do you think are the 3 biggest and most pressing issues facing our county in the next 4 years? Why?
In terms of education, the biggest issues are mental health, mitigating learning
disruption caused by COVID, and staff recruitment and retention.
All these three pressing issues are tied together. The biggest job of our school
system is to improve the educational achievements of all our students and get them
college, career, and life ready. This can only be done if we address the mental
health issues, and our schools and classrooms are staffed with excellent educators.
4 – What specifically do you plan to do in the 3 most pressing areas from Question 3?
- a. The Board of Education adopts student mental health as a permanent agenda item. Gradually phrase in the additional counselors and psychologists needed in the MCPS budget. Review the feasibility of salary upgrades for mental health counselors to boost recruitment.
- b. Empower teachers by creating space and time for collaborative planning. Remove unnecessary testing, and provide better support at the local school level. The MCPS HR office needs to upgrade its outreach in recruiting, and thru surveys and exit interviews, study why we are experiencing so much turnover currently.
- c. Work closely with our families by informing them of the curriculum, providing support, and removing barriers to equitable access to resources and opportunities.
5 – Would you consider supporting changes to electoral process such as open primaries or non-partisan elections in Montgomery County to allow 155,000+ registered Unaffiliated/Independents in Montgomery County to vote locally when it counts?
This question goes beyond the scope and responsibility of the Board of Education
member. I believe that this is a worthy question to be discussed by all county
residents
Questions & Responses (BOE)
1 – What will you do to ensure MCPS is accountable to the BOE for decisions, contracts, and spending?
Accountability is an area that might not always get the most attention. The Board
has several tools to oversee the system from requesting reports, and the supervision
and evaluating the Superintendent. It also has a Fiscal Management Committee.
One of the things that I propose is to add a researcher position for the Board. This
way, the Board can have independent data and a better set of priorities and policies
moving forward.
2 – Would you ever consider going fully virtual again given the costs seen in hindsight (increased mental health issues, lowered test scores, and increased violence)?
Our decision of whether or not to keep a school open should be based on the
recommendations/mandates from the Department of Health and Human Services.
We have learned that there is a lot we can do with a hybrid model if the pandemic
situation worsens and measures have to be taken. An area not receiving too much
attention is those who prefer virtual learning over the classroom, such as our
students with health concerns, we need to continually look at the virtual academy
and its course offerings.
3 – Do you support the shift from balanced literacy to structured literacy/science of reading?
Education is not a one-size fits all approach. Balanced literacy works for some
children and many children do learn to read without a lot of explicit instruction.
But it does not work for others. Explicit instruction is good for all children. It is
absolutely essential for many of them.
Explicit instruction does not need to be boring and dry. Moving away from
balanced literacy does not mean that we do not need to foster the love of reading in
children. Supporting our teachers with best practices training will go a long way to
improve the learning outcome of our students.
4 – What is your plan for continued recovery from learning loss and proficiency issues related to covid and virtual?
There are many things we can do to recover from the learning disruptions.
We do this by providing in-person/online tutoring and targeted summer programs.
We do this by working closely with families on how to help students. We do this
by making sure that our educators have the tools and resources they need to do this
job.
The key here is for the Board and MCPS to be engaged with our communities
(staff, students, and parents) and meet them where they are to understand the
needs, get feedback, and gather good ideas.
5 – What do you think MCPS should do to deal with staffing issues, subs, and make MCPS a place that people seek out for employment again?
There are many factors that attract educators to our system: salary, planning time,
the culture of respect, the orientation at the central and local level, mentoring new
teachers, and those new to a building, just to name a few.
Take a system look at the testing requirements. Evaluate to make sure the
alignment with our curriculum and reduce and do away with duplicate efforts and
unnecessary testing.
We can not over-emphasize the support at the local level. We need to work with
and better train our administrators to support our teachers in the buildings
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