Howard County voters will soon decide who they want to represent them on the school board, which has five seats up for grabs.

All of the races are contested except for District 3, where incumbent Jolene Mosley is running unopposed. (Find your district here.)

After this spring’s contentious school budget season, a push to restrict the content of school library books and an ongoing debate over students’ access to cellphones, there are plenty of live issues in this race. Here’s a look at where the candidates stand on those and other hot-button topics.

Election Day is Nov. 5, and early voting starts Thursday.

District 1

Andre Gao

An Ellicott City resident, this is Andre Gao’s first run at holding public office. Gao, 64, has three children who attended Howard public schools.

Gao’s campaign priorities include strengthening the school system’s operating budget and funding school construction.

Gao said he would use transparent criteria to prioritize which aging schools get renovated, and that he’d work to relieve overcrowding by expanding schools and building new ones.

He told The Banner he wants the school system budget to maintain popular programs such as music and elementary gifted and talented programs, keep class sizes small and add resources to special education programs.

Gao also wants the school system to offer a curriculum that helps students sharpen their skills with artificial intelligence regardless of their intended career path, according to his campaign website.

He told The Banner that students shouldn’t have access to cellphones during class, and that they should only be allowed if they are necessary for medical reasons.

Gao hasn’t taken a clear position on Mom’s For Liberty’s push to restrict school library books. During a League of Women Voters spring candidate forum, Gao said “we need to select material carefully,” because school libraries can only hold so many books, and that books shouldn’t be restricted as long as they benefit students’ education.

He has no endorsements.

Meg Ricks

Meg Ricks, 43, who ran unsuccessfully for an at-large seat (elected countywide) on the school board in 2022, is giving it another shot. Ricks, a mother of three, has held PTA leadership positions at Elkridge Elementary, Elkridge Landing Middle and Howard High. Last year, Ricks was the inaugural PTSA president at Guilford Park High.

Ricks told The Banner she wants to see the school system budget prioritize retaining great teachers with competitive pay, reducing class sizes and meeting the requirements of Maryland’s billion-dollar education reform plan, the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. That includes expanding access to early childhood education.

She stands against recent efforts to restrict the content in school library books, adding that she trusts the media specialists to offer age-appropriate materials. Ricks told The Banner, “I support the rights of parents to guide what their own children read, but no single person or group gets to dictate what every student has access to.”

Ricks told The Banner phones should be silenced and put away during class, and that enforcement should be a joint effort between teachers and parents. Ricks acknowledges “there are reasons students may need to have a phone like medical, work, or for peace of mind as they walk to and from school,” but that they need to learn to self-regulate their phone use during the school day.

She’s endorsed by Howard County Education Association (the union for school faculty and staff), Columbia Democratic Club and the Howard Progressive Project.

District 2

Larry Doyle

Larry Doyle, 74, lives in Columbia. This is his first time running for public office.

His top campaign priorities are school safety, offering competitive teacher salaries and “the continued struggles of many minority students and boys in particular,” according to his website.

Doyle supports teachers completing cultural competency training to “help them understand and address the unique needs of students from diverse backgrounds,” his website says.

Doyle is opposed to cellphones in school classrooms. “Some students do not have the discipline to use them constructively,” Doyle told The Banner in an email.

In regard to school library books, Doyle wrote in an email that he’s normally against censorship, but “the lines of what is acceptable has been blurred,” and the community needs to step in as a last resort. “In many cases, educators have gone too far in their offerings and when this happens, the community has the right to remove or ban certain books,” Doyle said.

He has no endorsements.

Antonia Watts, Incumbent

An Elkridge resident, Antonia Watts has served on the Board of Education since December 2020. Watts, 43, has two children who attend county schools.

Her main campaign priorities are student achievement, fiscal responsibility, and teacher recruitment, retention and diversity.

“I am dedicated to fostering a diverse, inclusive, and supportive environment for our educators in which they can thrive as they support student success,” Watts says on her campaign website.

Watts outlines several accomplishments from her first board term on her campaign website, including having a hand in the redesign of the budget process to increase community engagement and advocacy for public education funding.

In response to efforts by Moms for Liberty to remove certain content from school libraries, Watts told The Banner that “parents do not have the right to limit what other parents and children choose for themselves.”

“All children deserve to see themselves and their friends in instructional materials and in media center books,” Watts told The Banner.

As a current board member, Watts has heard from teachers, principals and bus drivers about how students having cellphones is disrupting the school day. Watts told The Banner she supports “requiring students to turn them off and store them away for the entire instructional day,” Watts said.

Watts’ endorsements include the Columbia Democratic Club, the African Americans in Howard County — the PAC associated with the African American Coalition of Howard County — and the Howard Progressive Project.

District 3

Jolene Mosley, Incumbent

Jolene Mosley has served on the Board of Education since 2020, and her four children have attended county public schools.

She is running unopposed for her reelection. She did not respond to emails from The Banner.

In response to a Community Allies of Rainbow Youth survey question about how the school system should deal with requests to remove LGBTQ+ themed books from school libraries, Mosley said there’s already a process and that critics are welcome to speak about books in public testimony at school board meetings.

Her endorsements include the Howard County Young Democrats, the African American Coalition of Howard County and the Howard Progressive Project.

District 4

Julie Kaplan

Julie Kaplan, 52, is a Fulton resident and school board candidate newcomer. Both her children graduated from the school system.

If elected, Kaplan would “restore pragmatic budgeting,” for the school system’s annual spending. “We need to make sure that we maximizing every dollar that the taxpayer spends so that every student gets the full benefit of that $19,000 spend [per student],” she said in a campaign video.

She also wants to deliver top-ranked schools to students, stating on her website that “to reverse the decline in academic rigor in Howard County schools our focus must shift back to the fundamentals of education.” She wants to give teachers more support and find innovative strategies to reduce class sizes.

Kaplan wants school environments provide psychological and physical safety for students. Kaplan said in a campaign video that no student should feel excluded, bullied or uncomfortable in school.

As far as cellphones in schools, Kaplan says on her campaign website that limiting device access during the school day “can create healthier, more focused learning environments for students.”

On the topic of restricting school library content, Kaplan told The Banner those decisions should be made with caution, considering age-appropriateness, community input and academic freedom.

Her endorsements include former Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman and former District 1 County Councilman Jon Weinstein.

Jen Mallo, Incumbent

As the current school board chair, Jen Mallo, 55, is seeking her third term on the board. Mallo was first elected to the board in 2018 for a two-year term and then was reelected in 2020 for a four-year term. All three of the Columbia resident’s children graduated from county public schools.

Mallo’s campaign priorities are removing cellphones from classrooms, ensuring special education students are supported and fully implementing the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future.

Mallo’s achievements on the school board include enacting the school district’s inaugural equity policy (Policy 1080) and expanding school-based mental health services through a Horizon Foundation grant, according to her campaign website.

Mallo is against campaigns to restrict content in school libraries, saying that the act is a restriction on free speech. Mallo told The Banner “students should have access to books that allow them to see themselves and others in true and authentic ways.”

On cellphones, Mallo told The Banner, “it is vital that our classrooms be cell phone free so that our students can learn in a safer, less distracted environment.”

Mallo’s endorsements include the Howard County Democratic Party, Indivisible HoCo MD and the Howard Progressive Project.

District 5

Andrea Chamblee

A Glenelg High School alumna, Andrea Chamblee, 63, is running for public office for the first time. Chamblee is the widow of John McNamara, a sports writer and editor, who was murdered in the 2018 Annapolis Capital Gazette shooting.

Among Chamblee’s top priorities is limiting redistricting, which she said should be done “only as a response to capacity issues.” As a student, Chamblee said she was redistricted five times before entering high school.

Chamblee wants the school system to be fiscally responsible and to tackle its laundry list of decaying school buildings with renovations and newly built schools, she said on her campaign website.

Chamblee’s priorities for the annual budget include smaller class sizes, allocating more funds for school transportation so new bus routes can be added and paying teachers more.

Chamblee characterizes the campaign to ban books in schools as “gratuitous” and does not support it. Chamblee told The Banner that book bans are primarily motivated by bigotry.

Chamblee told The Banner that while cellphones should not be out during the school day, there must be expectations for students who use applications on their phones in order to “monitor chronic health conditions, assist with executive functioning, or perform other essential actions.”

Chamblee’s endorsements include the Howard County Education Association, Howard Progressive Project and the Howard County Democratic Party.

Trent Kittleman

Trent Kittleman, 79, served in the Maryland House of Delegates for about eight years. She is the widow of state Sen. Robert H. Kittleman, lives in West Friendship and has five grandchildren in Howard schools.

Kittleman’s top priorities include age-appropriate education, common sense student safety and supporting alternative education options — such as charter schools and homeschooling — as outlined on her campaign website. Kittleman supports having school resource officers in all schools; they’re currently only in high schools.

Kittleman told The Banner she “supports a parent’s right to request a book be removed from school libraries.” She said it is not an unreasonable ask for “pornography” to be removed from school libraries. “I am also disturbed by the rallying cry of ‘book banning!’ Wanting a book removed from a school library is not ‘banning’ that book,” Kittleman told The Banner.

Kittleman said in an interview that she is in favor of having student cellphones locked up in pouches during the school day. She noted there will need to be exceptions, especially for special education students.

“It’s a lot easier to control the chaos, which would make it easier for everybody to study, particularly those in special ed,” Kittleman said.

She has no endorsements.