Valentina Downing
Running for school board in Somerset County District 1
Email: valentinadowning@gmail.com
Facebook: facebook.com/valentina.downing
How old will you be on Election Day (Nov. 3)?
66
Are you currently employed? If so, where, and what is your job title?
Yes, childcare provider and long-term substitute teacher
What is the highest level of education that you completed, and where did you get that degree?
Graduate
Why are you running for the school board?
I am running for the Board of Education to make a positive change. To ensure students, faculty and community members that they will no longer be overlooked. Ensure safety for everyone. To make sure all students have a voice to express their opinions and concerns. I want to make sure that we are transparent with the money and fair with the money through the county. Being a board member, I will look into policies before changing them. No one will have to be afraid to speak up fear of losing their job. Offer bigger incentives to get great educators.
What makes you a good candidate for the board?
This is personal to me. I want to help build schools where every child has the right to feel special and every child has the opportunity to express themselves and hold onto their dreams of their future
What is the most important issue facing your school board and what would you do about it if elected?
Policies are mostly being talked about in Somerset County. I would suggest putting together a team of five from the community to express their concerns about the policy that we are implementing to give their feedback first before completely changing it.
Please name a public leader you admire and explain why.
Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream; all of us are still dreaming and the students need to know that when they awake their dreams have been fulfilled.
The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, passed by the General Assembly in 2021, is a 10-year plan that includes increased funding to support early childhood education, higher teacher starting pay, college/career-readiness standards for high school graduates, and expanded services to multilingual and impoverished families, among other goals. Since the Blueprint's implementation, test scores have increased modestly in many parts of the state, but some school officials complain about the costs and administrative burdens placed on them by the Blueprint. Please tell us your views on the Blueprint and how it is affecting your school district.
From conversations and observations with what has been proposed in the Blueprint has not happened. We are still very low pay and have a lack of college readiness.
Chronic absenteeism has been a problem in many schools since the Covid-19 pandemic. How big of a problem is absenteeism in your school district, and what if anything can the Board of Education do about it?
I feel connection between the school and parents is the best way for us to address absence of students.
Are you satisfied with your school district's policy on AI use by students? If so, why? If not, what would you suggest to improve the AI policy?
AI has great potential for helping students but we want the students not to lean so much on technology. Reading is fundamental.
Youth mental health has been a growing concern for years now. Do you think your school district has the resources and personnel in place to deal with this issue adequately? If not, what would you suggest to improve the situation?
Somerset County does have the resources but could always use more. We need to educate families on how to use mental health services and where to get the resources from.
Do you think there are circumstances when books should be removed from school libraries? If so, what kind of books should be removed, and who should make those decisions?
Yes there are times books should be removed if they are sexually explicit and have language beyond normal. I feel there should be a policy in place for this but not to the extent that it takes parental responsibility or consent away. Feel that a parent should be able to say what they want for their child only. Written permission should be accepted. But in school, a place for learning, we all want to be careful of what our children are learning and how they are learning it.
