Candidate Susan Byrne responds to Parents' Coalition Questions

Susan Byrne
(301) 200-2535

1.  Do you support an online checkbook for MCPS such as is used in a number of other public school systems including Miami-Dade County Public Schools?

Support.  

2.  MCPS has minority contracting goals—we want more business to flow to people of color.  Currently, do you believe the practice of awarding non-bid contracts supports these goals?  What would you do to make MCPS always use a fair and open bidding process? 

Non-bid contracts do not support the goals of the MBE mission in MCPS.  The mission, as written, is "to foster a positive working relationship with small and historically underutilized minority/female owned professional services."  This is to be achieved through specific goals, including "increase the diversity and number of contracts and professional services providers that actively compete for construction services."  Competition is not compatible with non-bid contract awards.  All contracts should be open to public bid and all bids available to public scrutiny.  

3.  Do you support a U turn away from a one-size-fits-all education and restoring and improving wider choice of education opportunities for our children, including restoring learning centers for special education students, restoring honors classes, and restoring non-IT vocational education? 

Support.  I believe school choice and program choice and student-led learning all contribute to a quality learning process.  The record of MCPS achievement scores makes it clear that the current MCPS model of education fails to support the academic success of more than 2/3 of our students.  We must fit programs to students, not students to programs.

4.  Do you support requiring new initiatives and new curriculum to undergo a legitimate pilot study that meets the minimum standards from the U.S. Department of Education for reasonable evidence before deploying to the whole county?  Do you support assessing all new initiatives against the minimum U.S. Department of Education standard of "what works"? 

Support.  DOE's "What Works" is one of a number of best practice standards that should be adopted for practice and performance review throughout MCPS.  Performance at all MCPS schools should be held against objective best practice standards.

5.  If elected to the Board of Education, will you support or oppose MCPS' practice of permitting principals to assess students fees to attend public school classes?  

Oppose.  

6. Do you support a U turn from current policy of paying attorneys for advice on how to skirt the Maryland Open Meetings Act to a policy of full compliance with the Act and spirit of the law of open meetings, and even going beyond the legal requirements of the Act? 

Support.

7.  Do you support returning the preparation of the MCPS budget to the public Board of Education table? 

Support.

8.  Do you believe that the MCPS Educational Foundation should be transparent in its sources of funds and its expenditures? 

Yes.