Candidate Aryeh Shudofsky responds to Parents' Coalition Questions

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?

1. Yes, I support transparency in all spending.

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?

2. No, non-bid contracts are bad practice for all parties. Higher bids, within reason, can be accepted in an effort to further these objectives, but non-bid contracts is not appropriate when allocating tax dollars.

3.  Do you suppport 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?

3. Yes, wider education opportunities is the right way to teach our kids.

4.  Do you support requiring new initiatives and new curriculum be required 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"?

4. No, I think schools should have the ability to introduce new programming as appropriate to their student body and teachers; there is no one-size-fits-all method that would work across the board. Best practices should be shared, but not with a preset standard.

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?

5. Oppose. Public education is free.

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?

6. Yes, I support full compliance to the open meetings act.

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

7. Yes. There are facets of the budget that need to be negotiated in a private setting, but the process still needs to be wholly open to the public.

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

8. Yes. All monies in the system, no matter the source, should be fully disclosed.