Julie V. Walsh
Running for school board in Carroll County
Email: walsh4carroll@gmail.com
Website: www.walsh4carroll.com
Facebook: facebook.com/walsh4carroll
How old will you be on Election Day (Nov. 3)?
47
Are you currently employed? If so, where, and what is your job title?
I am not currently in paid work; I am a stay-at-home mother to five children.
What is the highest level of education that you completed, and where did you get that degree?
I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and German from Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
Why are you running for the school board?
In February 2025, when I became aware of the difficulty Caroll County Public Schools was having in implementing the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, I joined other local residents in advocating for a solution. A small group of us formed the Carroll Education Coalition, which engaged thousands of parents in advocacy aimed at both county and state decision makers. Two of us did the bulk of the on-the-ground work, traveling to Westminster and Annapolis to attend public meetings, give testimony and speak to elected officials.
After nearly a year of that work, I had learned a great deal about the school system and its challenges, and I began to worry about what might be coming next. I have five children in Carroll County Public Schools (plus countless friends) and I care deeply about the system’s success. So after initially brushing off the idea of running, I finally decided to try to make a difference in that new way.
What makes you a good candidate for the board?
In the past few years I have been heavily engaged in our schools, essentially making a full-time job out of my volunteer work, advocacy and now campaigning. The experience has reminded me of some of my strengths, which I had overlooked during my years of caring for my young children at home:
I love people. I love connecting with people and connecting them to one another. I love listening to them, hearing about their backgrounds and concerns and amplifying their strengths by encouraging them to help in ways they are well suited for. I am a good organizer and leader, and I use those skills to build up my community.
I am curious. I rarely hear a presentation or read a report that does not make me want to dig further, understand better and get to the ultimate truth of the matter.
I see the big picture. I am good at identifying the ultimate goal of an effort and assessing whether the actions that are planned or underway will point it in the right direction.
I am detached from all “sides.” While I have my own opinions, I am good at listening to and caring for people from all backgrounds and political persuasions, and giving them the respect they deserve.
I am comfortable in a political/legislative environment. Having spent years working around the Maryland General Assembly, I am not daunted by public speaking, legislative hearings, researching public documents, etc.
What is the most important issue facing your school board and what would you do about it if elected?
The most important issue facing our school system is a building sense of strain. It feels like we have taken one hit after another for at least 15 years: budget and staffing cuts, COVID-19 measures and the public divisions they engendered, political fights over hot-button cultural issues, inflationary impacts, challenges in implementing Blueprint and other state-driven education policies and now a declining enrollment.
The strain has caused stress and uncertainty for educators and families, and informs all discussions over the future of Carroll County Public Schools–and so I think it should be the primary focus of our school board.
“Strain” is too deep and broad of an issue for anything like a simple fix, but I think it can be mitigated by: (1) Lowering the temperature in the Board of Education’s deliberations and its interactions with the public. (2) Seeking to understand–and convey to the community at large–the financial struggles of the school system and the impact they are having on our offerings to students. (3) Actively engaging with state leaders to make known any difficulties in implementing Blueprint or other education policies and collaborating to identify reasonable alternatives. (4) Looking to the future and engaging with the community to come to an agreement on what Carroll County wants from its school system and how it can help get Caroll County Public Schools to that goal.
This is the work I want to see done by our school board, and this is the work I would jump into if elected.
Please name a public leader you admire and explain why.
The public figure I most admire is David French. French is a writer and attorney from Tennessee who has been clear-eyed in his assessment of American politics and devoted to truth and integrity in his speech and conduct.
A conservative evangelical Christian who was long engaged in legal work related to religious freedom issues, French nonetheless criticizes conservatives and Evangelicals when he finds their arguments or behaviors immoral or foolish.
A veteran who joined the U.S. Army in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and served in Iraq, French nonetheless offers frank and critical assessments of U.S. military conduct and national security concerns where he finds them problematic.
The qualities I most admire in public figures are integrity and a willingness to speak the truth and act justly in the face of pressure, even from one’s own side. French possesses those qualities in spades.
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.
The Blueprint is what drew me into education advocacy in Carroll County–the work that would ultimately lead to my decision to run for office. From what I’ve come to know of the law, I think it articulates excellent goals for Maryland’s public schools, but lacks foresight regarding the practical effects of its implementation and the difficulty in getting our schools the funding originally envisioned for the effort.
In Carroll County, which is perhaps the leanest school system in Maryland, with the lowest per-pupil spending and a small central office, Blueprint implementation was set to cost nearly 100 educators their jobs, move around another hundred, result in dramatically-increased class sizes in some parts of the county and cost some schools the resources they needed to serve their most disadvantaged students.
We in Carroll County were able to argue that the practical effects of the Blueprint were not aligned with the goals of the Blueprint, and fortunately Carroll County was granted an implementation waiver, along with help in designing a better implementation plan.
I am grateful for that result, but I recognize that there is still work to do to ensure that the on-the-ground effects of the Blueprint align with the law’s goals, and that it results in meaningful improvement in education statewide.
I often hear from educators and parents regarding their frustrations with state-level education policies, including those in the Blueprint. I think it’s important to take those concerns into account–and to take them to Annapolis, where the decisions are made that trickle down to us all.
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?
At 18.3% in 2025, Carroll County is in the lowest quartile of Maryland school districts for students at risk for chronic absence. I am grateful we’re not higher on the list, but still–18.3% of students is too high.
As a parent, most of what I’ve heard communicated is that attendance has focused on illness, encouraging parents to keep their children home only when they’re very sick. This strikes me as insufficient to the problem. If a student is chronically absent, there’s something deeper than normal illness at play.
I imagine the root causes of chronic absence are varied and challenging to address, but I think they should be considered alongside other challenges for the school system: education technology use and students’ ability to turn in work online, personal technology use and students’ disengagement with peers and educators, family financial difficulties and students’ role in providing childcare for younger siblings, etc.
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?
As a parent of three middle and high school students, I have seen a range of AI policies come home on class syllabi. Most prohibit AI use for completing assignments, but some nod to AI’s usefulness and allow for certain kinds of AI usage in certain scenarios.
Personally, I am becoming ever more wary of AI in general, and much more confident that AI should have no place in the vast majority of a child’s education. I understand that it is seen as inevitable and an increasingly-important part of the workplace. But that does not make it a good teacher.
People learn by doing, by struggling, by practicing. The goal of education should never be to turn in an assignment or get a certain grade, it should be to learn. If our children experience AI as a useful crutch, they will not gain the skills and the subject knowledge they need.
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?
I do not think our school system has the resources and personnel in place to deal with the growing concern over youth mental health. I believe our educators and staff do the best they can with what they have, but they are spread too thin. I think our school system should be better staffed and funded in this area, and that it should seek to better collaborate with parents and community partners to ensure that there are systems, practices and resources in place to be there for our young people who are struggling with their mental health.
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?
I think it is unlikely that I would support efforts to remove books from our school libraries, but I do concede that there are plenty of books out there that do not belong in schools. Books in school libraries should be appropriate, content-wise, for young readers, and I think most school media specialists are well aware of and supportive of that idea. I think most library staff seek to make good choices about the titles they bring in, and I trust their professional expertise.
Were edge cases to arise where books, say, glorify violence or focus primarily on explicit sexual material, I would read the book myself and seek to exercise sound, fair judgement. I think such cases would be exceedingly rare, because I am confident that our educators want the best for our children and would not seek to expose them to material that is unhealthy or demeaning.
