YES - at least one board member should be a current or former parent of a BCPS student. There should also be a true educator with training in educational theory, child development, etc. on the board.

Yes

Absolutely- no Board of Education can do its job adequately unless at least one current parent and at least one current teacher have a seat at the table with voice and vote.

MOST board members should have children in the schools unless their children have graduated. Perhaps one or two other "experts" could sit on the board. Further, the children hopefully will not all be enrolled at Roland Park and Mt. Washington. If my school is good enough for some kids, it should be good enough for all children! BTW, i have been in BCPS for 20 years and have never seen a board member in my buildings for any reason nor have I heard any feedback if they did visit. B/E members need to get out to a sampling of schools once in a while.

I think this falls in the same category as "should Baltimore City cops live in the city?" It would certainly make for more involved policing and the off-hour crime reduction of having a cop live on a block would be great. The problem was they couldn't get enough recruits. Being on the school board requires reading a lot of complicated stuff and putting in a lot of uncompensated hours and being very diplomatic and political. Seems like a pretty tough skill set to find. Do you want to limit your pool by saying all members must be parents?

Another issue I have with elected school boards goes beyond just having kids. I worry that some of the typical commenters on education issues on standard Sun stories (as opposed to blog posts) would get elected. I'm talking about some of the outright hostile folks who hate kids and resent any of their tax dollars going into the school system. They constantly go on about how sending a kid to City Schools is equivalent to child abuse and the like. I think there are enough people with this type of attitude that someone could get elected to the board. Or what about one of these (probably more than) half-crazy folks who get up and speak incoherently at board meetings? What if they mounted a campaign and got elected? Maybe I worry too much, but I do worry…

There are three questions here,

#1 - Whether a certain number of members of a board should have children in the public schools they oversee? YES

It is always reassuring when the decision makers have to live the outcomes of their decisions. A detached Board makes decision in a vacuum with little knowledge of how it affects families.

#2 - Can that be assured with an elected board? - MAYBE

In districts where the PTAs are strong, maybe. In Baltimore, no way

#3 - Do board members with children in schools make better decisions? - Who would know since they are in the minority and are usually out voted?

I can't remember all the Board members names but under the 1997 agreement, Brian Morris may have been the first to have a child enroll at the same time he served on the Board. Since then there has been Van Hook, Heck, Stone and Sauls.

Most definitely! One of the reasons the School Board is so unresponsive to the parents is they are unable to RELATE to the parents. They are out of touch with today's kids. The focus of the School Board should be on the kids but if they are not currently parents of kids in Baltimore County public schools, the kids are "out of focus" for them, both literally and figuratively. When a School Board is out of touch, they can be easily misled by BCPS administrators, who have become quite good at misleading them!

It seems so obvious that there should be at least SOME parents of currently enrolled public school children on the Board - is this only obvious to the parents of these children?

Most definitely and I think more than one board member. I think their decisions would geared more to the needs of children if their children were BCPS students.

Yes, at least one member should be a parent. But beware of firm rules-- grandparents and guardians could fulfill this need and be excellent, knowledgeable advocates, yet not "qualify."