School board seen as not serving mandate to oversee superintendent

"I was not elected to be cheerleader for the superintendent," school board member Valerie Ervin of Silver Spring tells the Gazette. "I was elected to an oversight body that asks tough questions that are designed to make a good system an even better system."

"There are some people who believe the board is not performing the mandate of supervising the superintendent," added Mark Adelman, head of the education committee for the Montgomery County Civic Federation.