Howard County school board member Vicky Cutroneo not running for reelection in 2022
Jul. 13—Howard County Board of Education member Vicky Cutroneo announced in a Facebook post Saturday that she will not be running for reelection in 2022.
First elected in 2018, Cutroneo said she only planned to serve one term, which will end in November 2022. She said she wanted to serve on the board to help create change in her community.
"In 2018, no incumbents were going to run again and we were going to lose a lot of historical knowledge," Cutroneo said. "I had been so involved [with schools] in the past few years that I thought I could bring some of that institutional knowledge and contribute."
In the 2019 legislative session, the Maryland General Assembly passed a bill changing the way Howard County residents vote for school board members.
Starting in 2020, five of the seven school board members were elected to four-year terms by voters in their respective County Council districts. In November, incumbents Christina Delmont-Small in District 1 and Jen Mallo in District 4 were reelected, as were new members Antonia Barkley Watts in District 2, Jolene Mosley in District 3 and Yun Lu in District 5.
The remaining two members will be elected at-large in 2022, meaning any registered voter can vote for them.
Since Cutroneo and fellow member Chao Wu won the most votes in the 2018 election, they each secured a four-year term, serving as the first two at-large members. The 2022 election will finish that transition to five district-based members and two at-large members. A student member is also elected each school year by county students.
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According to the Maryland State Board of Elections, no one yet has filed to run for the two at-large seats in 2022.
Throughout her term, Cutroneo said some of the issues that mattered to her most were adequate school capacity, building conditions and development, bullying and special education.
Cutroneo, who lives in Woodbine, said she is proud of the way she has used her position on the board to make a difference in the school system.
"I do think that my biggest accomplishment probably is highlighting the impact of development on our school system and highlighting the impact that that has all of our money going toward new construction and deferring maintenance on our older buildings as they fall further and further into disrepair, along with improving the accountability for bullying reporting and increasing funding toward special education," she said.
After her term ends, she said she plans to remain active in the community.
"I'm going to stay involved as a parent advocate and an advocate for people who need help navigating the school system," she said.
