Charles County Board of Education (BoE) member Jennifer Abell is again asserting her presence in the blogosphere.  She accepted an invitation to present in a session at the 2008 National School Board Association’s (NSBA) annual conference in Orlando, Florida.  She will take part in the session, “Blogging School District Leaders: Directly Engaging Your Community Using the Internet.”

Last April, The Bay Net’s article No Blogs Allowed exposed some of the obstacles Abell faced while attempting to share non-confidential information with the general public via her blog.  She received heat from her fellow board members for  posting her personal BoE meeting minutes immediately after the monthly meetings.  The other board members’ comments seemed like sour grapes for Abell’s technical savvy and useful public service. 

Last spring, meeting minutes were unavailable to the public until ratified at the Board’s next session.  Because the Board often only met monthly, it usually took weeks for the minutes to become available.  This delay made it impossible for members of the public who did not attend the board meeting, then held in the middle of the day, to be aware of issues until they were already being acted on.

At one point the Board and Vice-Chair Bobbie Wise, in particular, sought legal means by which to punish Abell and restrain her from broadcasting any public information before it came through official channels.  Wise preferred to have all school system information posted to the official school system website or announced to the press by Chairman Donald Wade. 

Board attorney Eric Schwartz informed Wise that Abell was legally allowed to post non-confidential information.  However, he also suggested a method of punishment:  the Chair could refuse to formally recognize an offending board member when she signaled her wish to speak during a meeting, silencing her unless she spoke out of turn.

Ironically, Abell’s idea for a public blog came from a previous NSBA conference which she attended with other members of the Board.  Professional educators and boards of education from all over the nation attend these conferences to take workshops, view materials and learn about programs to improve the school districts in which they serve.  At such a conference, Abell took a workshop teaching her to blog as a public service to her constituents.  After the scuffle, the NSBA also invited Abell to guest blog in their panel of presenters on the association’s official blog. 

After this recent invitation from the NSBA, Ms. Abell told The Bay Net, “I look forward to this opportunity.  I am honored and privileged to be representing Charles County Board of Education at the national conference.”

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Blogging for the public is not the only battle Abell has endured.  During the October BoE session, she requested a report which broke down Advanced Placement (AP) test scores by school.  Such a report was available to the BoE in previous years. 

Chairman Wade expressed his hesitation to ask staff to spend time compiling such a report “during this busy time of the year”.  Vice-Chair Wise said she would rather not know how well each school performed and voiced her main concern several times. 

“You may be putting teachers and students in very embarrassing positions,” Wise insisted.

Ms. Abell contended that the information would be important to examine in order to pinpoint problems and come up with solutions.  The Board’s student representative, Ashin Shah, expressed his opinion that such a report is necessary for the Board to keep its promise of a quality education no matter which county high school one attends.  Board members Pamela Pedersen and Maura Cook agreed that the information would allow the Board to ensure the quality of AP courses regardless of school.  

“This way we can come up with solutions for classes that might be struggling and determine why they have lower test scores, which may have little to do with the teacher," Abell told The Bay Net.  "We can also compare this information to classes that are excelling.  Without the information we can do nothing.  I prefer to do something."

The College Board website states, “Gauging individual success on an AP Exam is relatively straightforward—most students view a grade of 3 or higher as a successful grade.”  Only 32% of the 2969 AP Exams taken by CCPS students received a score at or above 3.  Charles County’s public school success rate is half that of the total rate for public schools statewide, where 63% of the tests earned scores of 3 or higher. 

According to Abell, most universities give college credit only for AP Exam scores of 4 or 5.  Only 11% of the tests earned their takers a score of 4 or 5.  That percentage is less than one third of the state’s rate.  38% of all AP Exams taken by Maryland public school students earned scores of 4 or 5.

Recognizing that the local AP program needs help, Abell, Cook and Pedersen voted to have the scores compiled and presented to the board.  Charles Carrington, Collins Bailey, Bobbie Wise, and Donald Wade voted down the request.

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