School board member turns focus to bid for council seat
After serving on the Anne Arundel County Board of Education starting in 2015, Julie Hummer ran for election in 2018 when the body was changed from an appointed one to an elected one.
She lost her election and served the rest of her appointed term through 2020, but she also started to notice the limitations of the board.
“Everyone thinks the schools can fix all the woes of society, and they can’t. I really got to experience it firsthand. There are so many things facing our children,” Hummer said. “Stable housing, good-paying jobs and stability for their families, food insecurity — all of those things factor into how well a child is going to do.”
And Hummer speaks from experience in the classroom as well.
She used to teach special education at schools in Northern Virginia before having five children. She now works part-time as a grants technician for the local Monarch Academy schools, helping complete paperwork for grants related to COVID-19.
She realized she could make more of the changes she thought were necessary on the County Council, which led her to run for the District 4 seat, a seat Democrat Andrew Pruski represented for two consecutive terms and now cannot run for again.
Hummer, a Democrat and a Laurel resident, said her vision for the county centers around bringing more residents to the area to drive up county revenue and fund projects that will improve quality of life in the area.
“Let’s make sure that we have good, competitively paying jobs for our people. Let’s bring in new businesses,” she said.
“When we talk about things that help children succeed, part of that is giving them opportunities outside of school — making sure our parks and recreation offerings are robust in every part of the county so that every child has access to those enrichment things, walkable communities, sidewalks. Those all sound like basic things, but they’re the things that make people feel secure and want to live in a community.”
She said, if elected, she would also advocate for using federal dollars the state and county recently received to complete longawaited projects.
“Every community I go to, it doesn’t matter where it is, the biggest complaint is traffic,” Hummer said. “With the new federal infrastructure bill, there are a lot of things that can be tackled in our county if we leverage it correctly. In my district a big thing is Route 3, what a mess Route 3 is. Let’s tap into that infrastructure bill money and find some ways to study that and improve those areas.”
Hummer said she would also strongly advocate for the Kirwan Commission bill, also known as the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, which she testified in favor of as the legislative chair for the Maryland Association of Boards of Education back when she was on the board.
The bill, passed by the Maryland General Assembly in 2019, is a massive investment in education, but one that’s well worth it, Hummer said. She said it includes provisions like higher pay for teachers and board-certified teachers and full-day prekindergarten.
She said she knows this kind of investment can be a tough sell in such a politically purple area but thinks she could help persuade the public and the council to get onboard.
“The County Council and the county executive are going to have to find the funds for it. But the county government also needs to share the positives of why we’re doing it. You need to sell people on why we need to make this investment in education,” Hummer said. “Nobody who is running, and frankly nobody who is currently on the council, has been as involved with the blueprint for education as I have.”
Hummer said she is confident she’ll stand out as a new County Council candidate on the ballot because of how involved she has been in the community over the past nearly 20 years she’s lived here.
“I’ve been involved in redistricting programs. I’ve served on the Adequate Public Facilities Committee for the county. I’ve been testifying before the County Council and before the state legislature for years on behalf of education and programs for families and children,” she said. “When COVID first happened, my family ran a food bank out of our garage for three months, feeding people who were out of work because of the shutdowns. We know these communities.”
The county’s primary election is June 28, while the general election following on Nov. 8. So far, Hummer’s only challenger is fellow Democrat James Estepp. District 4 covers Odenton, Laurel, Gambrills, Fort George G. Meade and parts of Millersville.