Jamar Day
Running for school board in Baltimore City At Large
Email: jamarday@yahoo.com
Website: jamarday.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/JamarEdwardDay/
How old will you be on Election Day (Nov. 3)?
38
Are you currently employed? If so, where, and what is your job title?
Special assistant, Maryland Department of General Services, Office of External Affairs
What is the highest level of education that you completed, and where did you get that degree?
Paine College, B.A. in history and minor in political science
Why are you running for the school board?
I am both a third-generation Baltimore resident and educator. My grandmother worked as a school administrator, my aunts taught in city schools and I've proudly taught in Baltimore City Public Schools as well. My mother integrated Garrett Heights Elementary Middle School, and my uncles fought off race mobs on Harford Road just to get home from school safely in the 1960s. This city and the fight for education are in my blood.
As a former dean of students and high school history and government teacher in Baltimore, I learned quickly that everything in the classroom is shaped by decisions made in City Hall, Annapolis and Congress. From year one in the classroom to the last, I promised my students I would fight for them at every level and for the last decade and a half, I have advocated and had education policies passed at the school board, state and federal levels already.
When I started in Baltimore City Public Schools in 2014, it felt like a time warp with depressed salaries and an unwritten rule that educators and families should just accept less as the norm. However, what crystallized the moment for why I am entering this 2026 race now was my nephew's recent school closure. Baltimore Boys Collegiate, another Black all-male school forced to close, is only the latest example of families being forced into impossible choices. Educating a child in Baltimore should not feel like the Hunger Games. I'm running to fight for EVERY STUDENT, EVERY EDUCATOR and EVERY NEIGHBORHOOD.
What makes you a good candidate for the board?
I've spent the last fifteen years as an educator, advocate and organizer. I watched brilliant children from Baltimore get shortchanged by decisions made from afar in City Hall, in Annapolis and in Washington, D.C. I made a promise to my students that I would keep fighting for them at any and every level of my career. My career trajectory includes training through the Baltimore Teachers Union, Chicago Teachers Union and Uncommon Schools. I've helped advocate for education policy and funding at the school board, state and federal levels. I’ve also been a fighter for out-of-school programming time and for the U.S. Department of Agriculture 2018 Farm Bill to eliminate decades of food deserts in our communities. I am running as a son, a nephew, a former teacher and an organizer who understands that Baltimore deserves a board member who has lived this fight and knows how to win it.
What is the most important issue facing your school board and what would you do about it if elected?
We need a full transportation overhaul in Baltimore City Public Schools. Students should have access to reliable transit to get to school and transit to school safely. When I drive 30 minutes to work downtown, I still need 10 to 15 minutes just to decompress before I'm ready to start my day. How can we expect a student to travel one or two hours to school, then walk through the door and be ready to learn in the blink of an eye? That's not a fair question, and it's not how children learn best. If commute time is stealing a child's ability to focus before class even starts, that's a policy failure, not a personal one.
This ties directly to something bigger: too many Baltimore youths are experiencing trauma on the way to or from school at an early age. Trauma that chips away at the everyday norm and follows them for the rest of their lives. A rough commute, a walk past an open-air drug market or an unstable school day due to behavior. Our children carry all of it into the classroom, whether we acknowledge it or not. How do you think that affects our classrooms, let alone our teachers?
When elected, I will work with the board to introduce safe passage programs and explore hiring community mediators as school staff. Students shouldn't have to navigate trauma alone, and they shouldn't have to carry a pocket knife just to get to and from school safely.
Please name a public leader you admire and explain why.
Lillie May Carroll Jackson.
As the president of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP from 1935 to 1970, Jackson completely transformed local grassroots activism. Jackson was a master organizer who pioneered the "Buy Where You Can Work" campaign, forcing white-owned businesses to hire Black employees. Her relentless dedication led to the desegregation of Baltimore's public schools, police force and recreational facilities long before the national movement gained full momentum. What inspires me most is her unshakable courage. She fought for Baltimore teachers to get equal pay even when facing systemic oppression and constant threats, she refused to back down. Her strategic legal battles and community-focused leadership proved that sustained local action can dismantle institutional racism, leaving a permanent blueprint for justice. She is the mother of Juanita Jackson Mitchell, the first woman in Maryland to practice law. Also, go support the Lillie Carroll Jackson Civil Rights Museum on Eutaw Place.
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.
As a former Baltimore teacher, I took my students to Annapolis in 2017 to testify, protest and learn firsthand how the Blueprint could reshape their futures. I also worked after school hours, helping students tap into the potential that our under-resourced classrooms simply didn't have room to develop. I've seen what happens when a school has too little, and I've seen what's possible when we invest.
I also take the concerns about administrative burden seriously. A policy is only as good as a district's capacity to implement it well, and Baltimore City Public Schools need real support, not just mandates! To meet the Blueprint's goals without overwhelming already-stretched staff, the board must be a strong advocate in Annapolis, pushing for adequate implementation funding and reasonable timelines, rather than simply accepting requirements handed down from the state.
Improving statewide test scores is a great start, not a finish line. If elected, I'll push for the Blueprint to be implemented in a way that's fully resourced, transparent to families and accountable to the stakeholders it's meant to serve. Every student, every educator and every neighborhood deserves a fair shot.
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?
Chronic absenteeism is an issue facing Baltimore City Public Schools. At its pandemic peak, over half our students were chronically absent. This isn't a discipline problem, it's a barrier-access problem rooted in unreliable transportation, access to stable housing and other barriers.
The board must treat attendance as a system-wide priority, not a school-by-school afterthought. That means advocating for the transportation overhaul our students need to get to class ready to learn, expanding trauma-informed support staff and holding the district accountable for real-time attendance data, not year-end reports.
We should also scale up home visits and phone banking, strategies that have shown real success in city schools in the years since the pandemic, because our families respond to personal outreach, not form letters.
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?
No, I am not satisfied with Baltimore City Public Schools' current approach to students' use of AI. I believe unchecked use of AI is crippling the critical thinking and creative writing skills our children need to succeed in society. When students can generate an essay or solve a problem without ever wrestling with the material themselves, we're not preparing them for college, careers or citizenship; we're preparing them to be dependent thinkers in the world.
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 would push the district to expand mental health staffing significantly at every campus. I'd also work with the board to introduce safe passage programs and bring conflict resolution mediators into schools, so students have support before conflict escalates, not just after. As I mentioned before, as far as transportation overhaul, a student who spends two hours commuting arrives depleted before class even starts. Real mental health support means addressing what happens on the way to school, not just inside it.
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?
NO.
