District 4: Say No to Sezin Palmer (Part 1)

Posted on August 13, 2020August 19, 2020 by Jenny

Sezin Palmer is an unsuitable candidate to represent District 4 on the Board of Education in Howard County. This is a multi-part series discussing the reasons why. See Part 2 here. I don’t know about you, but I had never heard of Sezin Palmer until last fall, when she and many other Howard County residents had a collective aneurysm over the idea of redistricting to better integrate our schools by socioeconomic status. The first time I saw her name was shortly after Howard County Public ...

Screaming Into a Pillow

Posted on July 18, 2020August 17, 2020 by Jenny

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks in Howard County. I’m starting to think I need to get a special pillow just for screaming. Does anyone else find themselves doing a lot of that lately? We had County Council Chair Deb Jung muting Councilman Opel Jones in a council Zoom meeting, the technological equivalent of walking over and putting her hand over his mouth. I can’t say I’ve ever seen Board of Education Chair Mavis Ellis ever do that for one of Christina “DeVos” Small’s lengthy sighing di...

Let’s Talk Redistricting (Part II)

Posted on July 17, 2020August 19, 2020 by Jenny

This is a two-part series reflecting on the 2019 HCPSS redistricting process. In Part I of my series on redistricting, I explained my position on the 2019 HCPSS redistricting process, and I stated that I while I supported the plan, I understood much of the opposition to it. Today, I’m going to discuss opposition that had a different, distinctly malignant flavor. This opposition was at best disingenuous and at worst covertly racist, characterized by vitriol filled with half-truths...

Let’s Talk Redistricting (Part I)

Posted on July 9, 2020August 17, 2020 by Jenny

This is a two-part series reflecting on the 2019 HCPSS redistricting process. Many folks are aware that I supported the school redistricting that happened in 2019. Every now and then, someone will drop a comment on my social media that points to my position on the 2019 redistricting as being inconsistent with or contradictory to something I may have written or tweeted lately. It’s important to note that the 2019 redistricting was a complex topic, and my thoughts and feelings abou...

Howard County, It’s Time to Ante Up

Posted on June 10, 2020August 17, 2020 by Jenny

It’s probably a safe bet (see what I did there) that you know what ante is. That seed money in the pot is an important part of the poker game. It’s what gets that jackpot growing. And if you don’t ante up, you don’t play. The Howard County Public School System is facing the reality that county residents and elected officials want to win the jackpot without tossing a chip on the table. In January, HCPSS Superintendent Michael Martirano requested a $964.1M FY21 operating budget for the scho...