Stunned

It's 1:27 and I can't sleep. I fell asleep too early when the world was still sane and I woke up to national news which fills me with a sick dread. But this is a local community blog, so let's not talk about that.

At this moment it looks reasonably certain that three of the challenger candidates have been elected to the school board and that incumbent Janet Siddiqui has not. Congratulations to Kirsten Coombs, Christina Delmint-Small, and Mavis Ellis. This is a change that has been a long time in coming and it wouldn't have happened without the hard work of many people who believed in something better for our schools.

I want to give a shoutout to candidates Vicky Cutroneo and Robert Miller whose dedication and sincere desire to bring positive change to the school system impressed me. I wish there had been spots on the board for both of them. I hope that the new board will be open to community input.I get the feeling that they will be. Cutroneo and Miller have much to offer.

To all of you who have worked to bring about change, I salute you. This is Howard County in action. You have:

• talked to neighbors, coworkers and friends
• passed out literature
• written letters
• testified at council hearings
• signed and shared petitions
• turned out in full force at the Board of Ed
  
• held meet-and-greet events,
• attended forums,
• stood at the polls

In closing, these words from May of 2015:

But underneath all of this is the fact that if parents and teachers truly united to seek improvement and change on shared goals, they would be unstoppable.