There 17 candidates running for the School Board in 2024.
Frederick, Md (KM) Four out of the 17 Frederick County School Board candidates attended a debate Monday night sponsored by the Frederick County Conservative Club.
It was moderated by former Board of Education candidate Cindy Rose who asked each of the candidates questions that were submitted by Club members. One was about Policy 443 which says schools will be a welcoming and affirming places for transgender and gender non-conforming students. Colt Black said it would lead to boys playing on all-girls sports teams. He said men and women are different physically. “We have different muscular trimming. That’s an anatomical scientific fact,” he said. “It is a dangerous thing to allow men on women’s sports teams. You wonder why men and women don’t fight in the MMA {mixed martial arts} That’s a major reason why those type of things doesn’t happen in the world.”
Navian Scarlett said she supports Policy 443. “We teach our children not to discriminate, to treat everyone the same with equality. But later down the line we tell them only the people we approve,” she said. “Everyone should have the right to be who they are. And everyone should have the right to live the way they live. I have never seen a problem or a disturbance with the students who identify. They just identify and go on learning.”
Another issue was parental rights, and how much influence parents should have on what their children are taught. Jaime Brennan said parental rights are fundamental. “And our system has not lived up to the obligation to respect parents, to respect parental rights. And has actively worked, frequently to undermine those rights. And those are the things that we need to change in our system, going in the wrong direction,” she said.
Patti Lee Worsley, who is a former teacher, agrees. “I believe that the parents are the pillar of the society. They have their family that’s integral to all society. And the more the schools try to keep parents out of that, the more we’re going to lose our liberties,” she said.
During the debate, Board of Ed Member Nancy Allen passed around a picture of genitals which she said was found in a book in the Frederick County Public School libraries. The candidates were asked if this material was appropriate for students. Brennan said “no.” “:Our public school libraries should be ordered toward the educational needs of the children in those schools” she said. “Pornography, graphic sexual content, graphic violence, they don’t have a place in our public school libraries.”
Black said the pictures were rather disturbing, but had this caution. “We have to be careful because it’s a slippery slope as you do regulate these things,” he said. “So we do have to be careful to keep cultural, art, scientific things like anatomy and things like that. We have to be careful to keep those content in the school while rooting out the graphic sexual content that we don’t want our students to have.”
Black called himself a “First Amendment absolutist.”
The debate took place at the Elks Lodge on Willowdale Drive in Frederick.
Primary election day is May 14th. Early voting is scheduled for May 2nd through May 9th..
By Kevin McManus