Joseph Marchio
Running for school board in Calvert County District 1
How old will you be on Election Day (Nov. 5)?
41
Are you currently employed? If so, where, and what is your job title?
Division manager for a general contractor in the D.C. metro area.
What is the highest level of education that you completed, and where did you get that degree?
Associate's degree in applied science, construction management, Columbus State Community College.
Why are you running for the school board?
As a father of two children enrolled in Calvert County Public Schools, I want to ensure we have the best school system in the state and produce high achieving young adults.
What makes you a good candidate for the board?
My profession requires bringing multiple team members together to build complex projects within a set budget and in a timely manner. My experience with negotiating favorable outcomes for all involved, including when there are different stakeholders with differing priorities, directly relates to what is required as a member of the Board of Education.
What is the most important issue facing your school board and what would you do about it if elected?
Safety — work closely with our sheriff and empower our school resource officers to make needed changes to the safety policies and procedures. We currently have students afraid to use the restroom in our middle and high schools due to fights, drug use and vaping. This is unacceptable. If we simply follow and apply the current code of conduct and empower school administration and teachers to do so, along with our school resource officers, we can easily solve this issue. Closing the restrooms is not a solution.
Please name a public leader you admire and explain why.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, passed by the General Assembly in 2021, is a 10-year plan that includes increased education funding to support early childhood education, increased teacher starting pay, college/career-readiness standards for high school graduates, and expanded services to multilingual and impoverished families, among other goals. Please tell us your views on the Blueprint and how it will affect your school district.
The Blueprint is unfunded and full of mandates that will strain local school systems and their taxpayers. It was vetoed by Gov. Larry Hogan before being overridden by the state legislature. The Blueprint, while well intended, is focused around the belief that if you just throw enough money at a problem, it will go away or improve. There are pay rate requirements and position requirements (more administrators instead of more teachers) that may not really be needed in improving our education system in Calvert County. The Blueprint requires funding full day pre-school, a decrease in teaching time (requiring more teachers), etc., all of which drive up costs to the taxpayers. With funding taken away by the state, the only way to fund this is to increase property tax — unacceptable. Calvert County currently pays $18,200 per student, Baltimore County pays $23,200 per student. Does anyone think more money would solve the problems in Baltimore?
Some school districts nationwide are placing new limits on the use of cellphones in middle and high schools. What do you think should be the policy on student use of cellphones in your district, and why do you support that policy?
Cellphones should not be used in school. They are distracting to our students and teachers. Unless there is an assignment that requires their use, cellphones should be off and/or locked away during the school day.
Are you satisfied with your school district's efforts to ensure the safety of its students? What, if anything, should be done to improve school safety in your district?
No. While there have been improvements this year, we still have students afraid to use the restroom due to safety concerns. We need to enforce the student code of conduct consistently across the board and have our school resource officers more involved with safety within the building, versus having the majority of shots called from school administration.
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?
Any books of a sexual nature should not be in our schools. They serve no educational purpose and should not be in a school library available to students under the age of 18.
Some school districts enact policies allowing transgender and gender nonconforming students to use their preferred pronouns while at the same time not informing those students' parents about that decision. What is your opinion of such policies?
There should be nothing held back from the parents. The students do not belong to the state; they belong to their parents. I do not support policies such as those described in this question.
