Gov. Martin O?Malley selected a Pennsylvania teacher to fill a vacancy on Carroll County?s school board.
Jeffrey Morse, a Taneytown resident who has worked as a biology, environmental science and agricultural science teacher at Littlestown Senior High School in Littlestown, Pa., since 1986, will complete a term unfinished by Thomas Hiltz, who resigned in March.
“I do not bring any ?agendas? to the board,” Morse wrote in a letter to the Carroll County Board of Education. “I pledge to diligently study the issues that are presented and have an open mind in deciding them.”
Morse, who has two school-age children, was not immediately available for comment, but he pledged in his interview this month with the school board that he would push for smaller class sizes, better retention of teachers and upgrades to aging schools.
His daughter, Charlotte, 14, is an eighth-grader at Westminster East Middle School, and his son, Ben, 12, is a sixth-grader at the private Montessori of Westminster but plans to attend East Middle School in the fall, according to Morse?s resume.
Maryland law prohibits teachers from sitting on the school board in the districts where they work, making it somewhat rare for educators to serve in those positions, said Patricia Foerster, the governor?s education adviser and a former president of the Maryland State Teachers Association, a union representing 67,000 teachers.
But Carroll?s proximity to Pennsylvania makes it easier for that to happen, she said.
A record 21 candidates were interviewed for the vacancy left by Hiltz, who resigned to take a position with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Morse will have to run for election after his term expires next December if he wants to retain his seat.
