Birthdate and place: June 15, 1942; South VietNam Residence: Silver Spring Family: Married, two adult children Education: Licensed Professional Engineer - State of Maryland; MS⁄PhD in Engineering Sciences - University of Tennessee; BSEE - University of Missouri; BA in Math - Rockhurst College Professional experience (in reverse chrono order): Worked as an instructor - Department of Army; as an Electrical Design Engineer, Staff Engineer, Section Supervisor - Tennessee Valley Authority, as a Vocational⁄ Technical Teacher - Chattanooga Vocational⁄Technical College; as a Part time Engineering Technology Instructor - Montgomery College in Rockville; as a Staff Engineer⁄Inspector⁄ Auditor⁄ Team Leader⁄ Project manager⁄ and currently as Senior Project Manager - Nuclear Regulatory Commission Community experience: 1981-1994: member of the various PTAs where my children attended ES, MS, and HS; 1987-1991: Volunteer Soccer Coach for MSI; 1985-1992: member, Committee on Education Technology to Montgomery County Public Schools and Montgomery Collegeand assigned as liaison to the Edison Career Center; 1991-1997 - Member and chairman, Cultural Minority Local Advisory Committee to Montgomery County public schools system;1995-1996: volunteer on citizen committee to review for the MCPS operating budget & six-year construction plan; 1994-1997: Upcounty Citizen Advisory Board; assigned as liaison to Montgomery College’s Germantown Provost Advisory committee; 1999-2005: member and Vice Chair on the Montgomery County Board of Electrical Examiner; 1985-2006: Volunteer Judge to the Montgomery Sciences Fair. Key issues: Increase number of school counselors to help students at all levels. Training teachers to be more innovative in teaching to increase student learning effectiveness. Raising student awareness toward responsibilities to themselves, their future and the society. Increasing vocational and career technology curriculum to provide work skills to students and additional career counseling⁄ help to disabled students. Improving communication and collaboration with parents and stake-holders. Balancing spending of tax moneys between instructional needs and non-instructional cost as in personnel salaries⁄benefits E-mail address: tommy_pe2001@yahoo.com Link to state Board of Elections campaign finance database

Board of Education, At-Large

Tommy Le

Our schools are currently confronting significant budget problems, and the national economy is struggling due to the housing market, and that the referendum states that "primary purpose" of allowing up to 15,000 machines in Maryland is to raise revenue for education. The alternative solution for having more money for education is to raise taxes, and this will squeeze property owners, working families, and businesses at a time of severe national economic distress - and thus is definitely not a good solution, period.

Q. What are your top three priorities for the next four years, if elected?

(1) Training teachers to be more innovative in teaching methods to increase student learning effectiveness, including the teaching of and caring for students with disabilities.

(2) Increase number of school counselors to help students at all levels to help raising student awareness toward responsibilities to themselves, to their future and the society.

(3) To find causes as to why our tax moneys are (and had been) spending less and less for our children’s instructional needs and more and more or our tax moneys on MCPS’non-instructional costs. Then communicating with all stake-holders for the needed remedial corrective actions

Q. How would you rate the performance of the current school board: excellent, good, fair or poor? Why?

Fair or poor - Current board members, except for Mrs. Navaro, are just coasting along and let the school superintendent to propose and implement what ever the school superintendent would see fit with no proper inputs from the community and stake-holders.

Q. Superintendent Jerry D. Weast has said he doesn’t expect to extend his contract beyond 2011. What qualities, skills and expectations would you seek in a new superintendent?

I will seek out any of our locally grown school administrators who had demonstrated cooperative spirit, weighing community inputs prior to policy implementation, and be a team player along with all stake-holders.

Q. Do the superintendent and the unions have too much influence over the school board?

You have to ask? The Teachers Union is an Emperor without clothes; people who run this union would recruit and⁄ endorse ONLY candidates who had pledged and agreed (via their voice-recorder at their so-called candidate interview sessions) to support their union contracts for yearly increase in salaries and benefits. They will print their pre marked-up ballots with names of those candidates they had selected; and on each election day, the union will send their army of their union activists who will have the Tuesday off with pay (while the rest of us work to pay their salaries) and pass out their so-called Teacher-Endorsed pre marked-up ballots to voters. Telling other who to vote for is a disgrace to our democracy and disrespect to the voter’s independent choice and their integrity.

The superintendent, by laws, is working for the tax payers and the school board; but we have an un-ept board, so the supt just has always a freehand to use our students and teachers as his instrument for his new educational experiences.

Q. Is the county funding for schools too much, about right or too little? If too little, where would you find additional money?

It is about right, but how the funding has been spent or will be is a question that will need to be re-evaluated if I am elected to the school board. For the past ten year, the instructional spending went down and the non-instructional cost went up, while our student enrollment had been somewhat decreasing (2 percent the last few years). Only 20 percents of voters have children in MCPS, while MCPS is spending more than 52 percent of the total county revenues on a yearly basis.

Q. Do you think the system for renovating schools is adequate, or does it need changing?

It’s inadequate, money has been diverted to support the school contract agreements for salaries and benefits that had been increased from 7 to 10 percent yearly in the past 10 year time frame, a 3 to 4 percent higher than the yearly cost of living index.

Q. How well are the county’s high school consortia working to raise student achievement?

It’s working slowly with good progress.

Q. There is a strong focus on improving the county’s middle school curriculum. How well is the middle school reform working to raise student achievement?

There are some sign of improvement, but it’s still a long way from where the schools need to be.

Q. Are too many students being pushed into advanced placement and honors classes without proper preparation?

The rumor said yes. The school superintendent is thriving on these pushes so his name would be in the public light more often as part of his many accomplishments

Q. The school system’s health curriculum includes discussions of homosexuality and demonstrations of contraception use. Would you change the policy or let it stand?

It would need a change definitely

Q What do you think about the board’s relationship with the community?

Not as the community would want the board to be. The current board members (except Ms. Cox) are there to support the causes of the school unions.

Q. Does the County Council have too much, too little or not enough oversight of the school system?

The County Council is an elected body for the oversight of the county operations, thus its relation with the elected school board must be more active and transparent. There should be no direct communication between the County Council and the school superintendent who is an employee of the elected school board.

Q. What should the school system do to improve performance of struggling students?

This is where my above-mentioned priorities would come in place:

(1) Training teachers to be more innovative in teaching methods to increase student learning effectiveness, including the teaching of and caring for students with disabilities.

(2) Increase number of school counselors to help students at all levels to help raising student awareness toward responsibilities to themselves, to their future and the society.

Q. Do you think the school system is doing enough to meet the needs of special education students?

Absolutely not. Too much money had been spent on litigation against parents of students with disabilities. The school should provide and increase vocational and career technology curriculum to help disabled students with needed skills for the world of work and need to improve communication and collaboration with parents and stake-holders.

Q. Are the schools safe for students and teachers? If not, what should be done?

Yes. For onsite -More communication in promoting safety awareness to students, teachers, and school workers. For offsite- Keep close contact with local law enforcement and county rescue personnel.