Howard County School Board Election 2024: Meet Andrea Chamblee

HOWARD COUNTY, MD — Residents will vote this fall to elect new members of the Howard County Board of Education. Patch invited each candidate running for a seat on the school board to complete a questionnaire about their campaign priorities, their views and themselves. Below you'll find the unedited, verbatim responses from Andrea Chamblee, candidate for HCPSS Board of Education District 5.

Early voting runs from Oct. 24 through Oct. 31 and Election Day is Nov. 5. More information about voting locations, registration, mail-in ballots and dropbox ballots is posted here.

The Howard County Board of Education consists of seven members elected to four-year terms. Five members are elected by district and two members are elected at large. Here are the people who filed for candidacy with the State Board of Elections for the Howard County Board of Education.

District 1
Andre Gao, Ellicott City
Meg Ricks, Ellicott City

District 2
Larry Doyle, Columbia
Antonia Watts, Elkridge

District 3
Jolene Mosley, Columbia

District 4
Julie Kaplan, Fulton
Jen Mallo, Columbia

District 5
Andrea Chamblee, Clarksville
Trent Kittleman, West Friendship

What is your name? Andrea Chamblee, Esq.

What position are you running for? Howard County (MD) Board of Education in District 5

What ways can people contact you with questions?

info@andeachamblee.com, (347) 722-1738
6030 Daybreak Circle, A150, 358, Clarksville, MD 21029
Facebook: Andrea Chamblee for HCPSS BOE
Twitter: @Chamblee4BOE

Campaign website? AndreaChamblee.com

Age as of election day? 63

Place of residence? Western Howard County

Family members? My siblings and I are Howard County Public School graduates, my mother taught public school in Howard County, my late husband was a Sports Writer for the Annapolis Capital Gazette and he was killed by a mass shooter who targeted the newspaper’s office.

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government? No

Education?

Graduated from Glenelg High School in Howard County (1979); UMD College Park with a BS in
Journalism (1983); and UMD School of Law (1986)
Member of Maryland and DC Bars
Completed Executive Development Program, Northwestern Univ. Kellogg School of Management
(2008)

Occupation?

Adjunct Assistant Professor, George Washington University (2015 – Present)
Adjunct Faculty, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health (2000–2015)
FDA, (Supervisory) Regulatory Counsel (2009 – 2021)
Regulatory Affairs Consultant (1999–2009)
FDA Regulatory Counsel (1987–1999)

Previously held elected or appointed political positions? None

Why are you running for office? I grew up in Howard County and I love our community. I’m passionate about public health, safety, and education. These three things are more interwoven now than ever. I fear for the students with asthma who struggle to breathe the low-quality indoor air in many of our buildings, I hurt for the kids who are different and feel they don’t belong, I am appalled by the insufficient care provided to our students with special needs, and I am deeply concerned by the re-energized book banning movement that seeks to erase history and devalue large segments of the human population. It has also been frustrating to watch the school system and the BOE struggle to carry out their most basic duties. I’m disheartened by how little is done to reach the members of our community who can’t share their voices using any of the channels that are currently available.

HCPSS needs someone who will do the hard work necessary to find the right solutions, who will go find those unheard voices so that all perspectives are understood, who knows how to effectively run large, complex systems, and someone who is committed to doing it all, out in the open, where the public can see.

What are your top 3 priorities? I am the Safety Candidate. All of my priorities stem from my commitment to making our schools inclusive learning environments where mental, emotional, and physical well-being aren't pushed to the back burner.

Capital improvements, deferred maintenance, new construction and our dependence on portables all need to be addressed urgently. Funding those projects on an accelerated timeline will require assistance from the state, which I will advocate for. I will also work with our county and state officials to explore innovative funding formulas and determine if any are appropriate for HCPSS.
On the operating side, classrooms come first. Class sizes need to be smaller, students and teachers need adequate resources, advanced learners need challenging opportunities and students who need more support deserve to get it. Every building needs more counselors, special educators, and paraprofessionals. And we must pay staff well above mandatory minimums if we hope to overcome the widespread teacher shortage.

What do you believe is the most important issue facing the school board? The Board of Education will continue to struggle through budget season each year until new streams of revenue are coming in to fund schools. I will advocate to the county and state to find sustainable solutions. We have got to address the deferred maintenance that is piling up with no end in sight. This could mean private-public partnerships, sponsorships, grant opportunities or other innovative funding formulas. I am open to considering all options. I will also ask the Board to support me in requesting that the superintendent do a thorough audit of all operational expenses. I know there is far we can trim in areas that won’t negatively impact the classroom experience. We just have to do the hard work of looking for a higher quantity of small dollar items instead of doing the easy thing (taking a hacksaw to teacher salaries and expensive programs).

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post? My opponent is a founding member of Howard County’s chapter of Moms for “Liberty.” They are a highly controversial group that was founded to oppose COVID-19 safety protocols and now seek to ban books, censor history and divert tax payer dollars to private and religious schools. She has promoted and attended Moms for ”Liberty” events in Howard County where baseless accusations were leveled against our teachers and librarians by paid speakers from out of state. Additionally, my opponent is a career politician from a prominent political family. While serving as a State Delegate, my opponent voted against bills that fund public education; against bills that increase public health and safety; and against bills that increase government transparency and accountability.

Howard County is my home town. I am the daughter of a public school teacher, I am an educator, and I don’t have a political agenda. I am in this race to have a positive impact on everyone in this community, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender expression, sexual orientation, learning ability, or political viewpoint. If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)?

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)? In a sense I am a challenger because my opponent has name recognition from her family’s extensive political activities and has herself been an elected official. . Moms for ”Liberty” does not represent the values of most Howard County families and their influence on our school board would be detrimental, as evidenced by the oppressive policies they pushed through in neighboring Carroll County schools. Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform. What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform. What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job? My passion for public service led me to a legal career with the FDA and for the last 25 years I have taught graduate courses in public health and regulatory affairs. My commitment to public safety was later channeled into gun safety activism after my husband was killed by a mass shooter. It was through this advocacy that I learned about the safety risks facing our students. In the US, guns are the number one killer of children, but it is not the only risk they encounter each day. Bullying, mental health struggles, technology addiction, unreliable transportation, larger class sizes, fewer fine art enrichment opportunities, portable classrooms, overcrowding, poorly maintained buildings, food insecurity, poor indoor air quality, and the rising influence of extremist groups are all eroding the well-being of our students and staff. Students who aren’t well, can’t learn well. In order to focus on academics, we need to provide students and staff with a safe and stable learning environment.

How will you handle LGBTQ+ and racial issues brought before the school board? I don’t intend to wait for these issues to come before the board again. We already know what needs to be addressed and I will take a proactive approach. Staff need anti-bias, anti-racist, and LGBTQ+ inclusiveness training. We need to put significantly more support behind restorative justice practices, which has the benefit of increasing community involvement as well. Disproportionate discipline continues to be a major concern. There is an outsized negative impact on students who are economically disadvantaged, students with IEPs and students who are Black. Bullying is out of control and made worse by overcrowding and larger classes. Students need more social emotional learning opportunities and the system needs to stop trivializing incidents that devalue someone else’s existence. It’s hard to do this question justice in a short form response and I encourage community members to reach out for a more in-depth discussion.

How will you handle book-banning issues brought before the school board? I do not support book-banning primarily because the large scale efforts from parents’ rights groups are acts of bigotry and intolerance. On very rare occasions, parents may discover that their school library contains a book that is not age-appropriate. That is why HCPSS has a Resource Reevaluation Committee composed of teachers, parents, and community members.

There is a process that allows for challenges and reevaluations and I would like to see that robust process remain in place. The book banning campaigns we’re seeing now are gratuitous. The current effort underway in Howard County targets 46 books at once, all of which depict or represent the experiences of marginalized communities; 46 titles that were all carefully selected by subject matter experts and highly trained professional librarians. We give kids books so they understand history and their place in it. Books provide opportunities for windows and mirrors. Windows allow students to see the world from another perspective and mirrors let our children see themselves represented and affirmed.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions? I attended Howard County Public Schools, and my mother taught here. I belong to several PTAs in District 5 and I am a highly engaged member of the HCPSS Community Advisory Council that reports directly to the Board of Education. I’m also involved with high school debate teams in Howard County and I have judged previous debate competitions. I occasionally attend Board of Education meetings in-person and I always make a point of watching the work session and meeting playbacks online. I have testified at every level of government in the state of Maryland - always about issues related to safety.

I have over 35 years of experience as a Food and Drug Attorney, and I am a trained FDA investigator. I am a compliance expert in the areas of policy, procedure, and performance audits. I have an extensive background in mediation, negotiation, and successfully building consensus.

As an educator and a Fellow in my profession, I train people to perform these activities. As a department supervisor at the FDA, I had to carefully prepare budget proposals for resources, training, compensation, benefits, and all other operational expenses that were required to carry out the duties of our office with high quality performance. I am very accustomed to finding solutions in resource-limited environments.

As one of Maryland’s foremost safety advocates, I am all too familiar with the challenges our students and school staff face every day in the areas of physical safety, violence prevention, mental/emotional health, and the health/safety risks that come with being inside aging, crowded buildings. My career and advocacy training have made me highly adept at identifying contributing factors to problems and addressing solutions that get to root causes. Band-Aids are not good enough. In my work with national advocacy groups, I’ve gained access to mounds of data about school system issues, showing what has been tried in other areas, what has worked well, and what hasn’t. My frame of reference is broad and I am grounded in the knowledge that making poor systemic decisions can almost always be avoided.

I have been endorsed by the Howard County Education Association, The People’s Voice Ethics Ballot, The School Board Integrity Project, Indivisible Howard County, Everytown for Gun Safety, and several local, state and federal officials.