Don’t put Maryland
schools, students,
& educators at risk
Culture war school board slate Heather Fletcher, Shelly Potter, Geoff Seidel, and Tyler Walker are focused on the wrong things:
Trying to remove books from school libraries (Read more)
Causing drama at school board meetings (Read more)
Bringing divisive partisan politics into our schools (Read more)
As our students face federal cuts to school meals, student programs, and school funding, far right-aligned candidates Heather Fletcher, Shelley Potter, Geoff Seidel, and Tyler Walker are running on a slate and attempting to bring a deeply divisive and distracting agenda to Frederick County schools. Unfortunately, our county has already been directly impacted by the chaos and reckless cuts coming from DC. The last thing we need is more of it locally.
The Frederick County School Board should be driven to help students achieve their dreams—not accomplish a particular political agenda.
Our schools ought to be able to focus on teaching kids to read, helping them learn to think critically and understand the world around them—but extreme school board candidates are trying to turn back the clock and bog down the school board in culture wars rather than making sure our students have what they need to be successful.
Book banning
Our school board should not be censoring history, banning books, or putting a political agenda into our kids’ classrooms. We’ve seen it happen in other counties in Maryland when far-right candidates take over school boards—banning Harry Potter, The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, and other classics.
Heather Fletcher has tried to single-handedly remove books from libraries, checking out all of the books from a Pride Month display at the Brunswick Public Library so others couldn’t access them. No individual parent should decide what books are available for a whole school or community.
Drama magnet
Fletcher’s divisive, extreme behavior isn’t limited to preventing others from reading books. She had to be removed by the Frederick County Sherrif’s Office from a school board meeting after claiming to identify as an elected board member…and a cat. Seriously. “If I’m meowing down the hallway or barking like a dog, the teachers will respond to me and bark and meow back to me,” she shouted as she was escorted out.
She also seems to weirdly enjoy posing for photos outside of public bathrooms in her spare time.
All students deserve to feel safe and supported at school, regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or immigration status. The divisive agenda of extreme school board candidates would undermine those very principles. Our students are facing serious issues, and deserve school board members who take those issues seriously.
Fletcher, Potter, Seidel, and Walker are supported by extreme Maryland politicians
Fletcher, Potter, Seidel, and Walker are running on the same slate, which is backed by failed gubernatorial candidate and Trump acolyte Dan Cox, who bussed insurrectionists to Washington on January 6, accepted gifts from a member of the Proud Boys, is an election denier, and has stated that abortion should never be allowed even to save a pregnant woman’s life. Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan called him a “whack job” who is “not, in my opinion, mentally stable.”
Dan Cox is supporting Fletcher, Potter, Seidel, and Walker, and that should be a flashing red light that they are extreme candidates who will bring politics into the classroom and cause chaos in our schools.
And it’s not just Dan Cox. Perennial candidate, disbarred attorney, and semi-professional NBA heckler Robin Ficker supports Fletcher, Potter, Seidel, and Walker.
The Frederick County Republicans are also supporting Fletcher, Potter, Seidel, and Walker, further injecting Trump-era politics into traditionally non-partisan school board races.
Fletcher, Potter, Seidel, and Walker are endorsed by the controversial 1776 Project PAC, which is funded by far-right billionaires who like to pour out-of-state money into school board races to support extreme candidates. The 1776 Project PAC sends highly divisive messages about race, gender, and culture war issues to try to divide communities and rally support behind their candidates. The PAC is notorious for poor campaign practices, holding the distinction of being the subject of the largest authority line fine in Maryland history for messages it sent around school board races in 2022, and having its former treasurer pleading guilty to federal fraud charges while serving as treasurer to disgraced former congressman George Santos.
Fletcher, Potter, Seidel, and Walker are too extreme for Frederick County. We need leaders who make decisions based on what is best for students—not divisive, culture war-driven political agendas.
