Education Committee: Board of Education Candidates Forum - A Success?
by Mark R. Adelman, Education Committee ChairOur Candidates Forum on Thursday, October 14, held in the Grand Courtroom of the Red Brick Courthouse in Rockville, went essentially according to plan. After brief welcoming remarks, Dan Wilhelm turned the program over to moderator George Sauer, who posed audience-generated questions to the candidates in a format that allowed three candidates to answer a given question, with the first candidate receiving 90 seconds and the other two 60 and 30 seconds, respectively. The sequence was selected to give each candidate equal opportunity to be first, second, and third and to answer the same number of questions. Five candidates participated: Sharon Cox, Tommy Le, Valerie Ervin, Sheldon Fishman and Walter Lange. Steve Abrams was absent because of a prior commitment. George was assisted by Dan who kept track of the number of questions each candidate got to answer or comment on; Wayne Goldstein, time-keeper; and Diana Conway and Laura Kervitsky who collected and sorted questions from the audience. After about 90 minutes of Q/A, the evening was wrapped up with a three minute closing statement by each candidate. The audience of about 30 asked a number of penetrating questions. There was some real debate, and individuals had time to chat with the candidates both before and after the formal program.
So, was this program a success? We'd like some feedback from you. If you attended, how would YOU rate the forum? If you did not attend, why not and what lesson(s) can we draw? Was the location "good"? What about the format? Why didn't we have more of an audience? Were people just tired of the campaign season? Had everyone made up his/her mind? Did we miss some critical method of publicizing the event? Assuming that such forums are a valid element of Civic Fed's goal of informing the public so the public can make informed decisions about government, how do we define "success" of such events? We'll be posing these same questions to the candidates who participated. The Education Committee has made a major investment in this candidate forum process and we plan to continue this for future BoE elections. We want to make the process as effective and valuable (for everyone) as is possible. We really need your feedback. Contact me (adelman3@erols.com or 301-942-6893); I'll distribute your comments to all my colleagues on the Education Committee and we'll try to make the next BoE candidates Forum even better!
This Page Last Edited: December 5, 2004.