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Abel Olivo
Abel Olivo was a candidate for District 4 representative on the Prince George's County Board of Education in Maryland. Olivo lost in the general election on November 8, 2016.[1]
Biography
Olivo earned his bachelor's degree from Ohio State University.[2]
Elections
2016
Five of the 13 seats on the Prince George's County Board of Education were up for general election on November 8, 2016. A primary election was held on April 26, 2016, for seats in Districts 5 and 8. In District 5, challengers Raaheela Ahmed and Cheryl Landis advanced to the general election by defeating incumbent Verjeana Jacobs and Robert Johnson. Incumbent Edward Burroughs III and challenger Stephanie Hinton advanced to the District 8 general election by defeating Carlton Carter. Ahmed and Burroughs won their respective races. David Murray defeated Raul Jurado for the open seat in District 1. Incumbent Patricia Eubanks defeated challenger Abel Olivo in District 4, while incumbent Alexander Wallace defeated challenger John Richardson in District 7.[1]
Results
| Prince George's County Public Schools, District 4 General Election, 4-Year Term, 2016 |
||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Patricia Eubanks Incumbent |
69.97% | 21,844 |
| Abel Olivo | 29.01% | 9,055 |
| Write-in votes | 1.02% | 319 |
| Total Votes | 31,218 | |
| Source: Maryland State Board of Elections, "2016 Presidential General Election Results," accessed December 14, 2016 | ||
Funding
Candidates for public office in Maryland had until March 22, 2016, to submit their first contributions and expenditure report of the primary campaign. The final campaign finance deadline of the 2016 campaign was November 22, 2016.[3] State law allows candidates to file Affidavits of Limited Contributions and Expenditures (ALCE) if their campaigns did not accept $1,000 in contributions or spend $1,000 in a particular reporting period.[4]
October 28 filing
Candidates received a total of $16,308.71 and spent a total of $22,497.55 as of October 30, 2016, according to the Maryland Campaign Reporting Information System.[5]
District 1
| Candidate | Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raul Jurado | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| David Murray | ALCE | ALCE | ALCE |
District 4
| Candidate | Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patricia Eubanks (incumbent) | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Abel Olivo | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
District 5
| Candidate | Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raaheela Ahmed | $4,721.00 | $12,749.77 | $444.46 |
| Cheryl Landis | $5,085.00 | $6,184.17 | $6,629.76 |
District 7
| Candidate | Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexander Wallace (incumbent) | $2,648.25 | $523.25 | -$2,147.71 |
| John Richardson | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
District 8
| Candidate | Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edward Burroughs III (incumbent) | ALCE | ALCE | ALCE |
| Stephanie Hinton | $3,854.46 | $3,040.36 | $814.10 |
March 22 filing
Candidates received a total of $16,427.00 and spent a total of $10,909.89 as of April 18, 2016, according to the Maryland Campaign Reporting Information System.[6]
District 1
| Candidate | Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raul Jurado | ALCE | ALCE | ALCE |
| David Murray | ALCE | ALCE | ALCE |
District 4
| Candidate | Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patricia Eubanks (incumbent) | ALCE | ALCE | ALCE |
| Abel Olivo | ALCE | ALCE | ALCE |
District 5
| Candidate | Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Verjeana Jacobs (incumbent) | $900.00 | $1,419.71 | $1,585.32 |
| Raaheela Ahmed | $4,227.00 | $2,281.87 | $1,945.13 |
| Robert Johnson | ALCE | ALCE | ALCE |
| Cheryl Landis | $7,300.00 | $6,141.74 | $7,560.44 |
District 7
| Candidate | Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexander Wallace (incumbent) | $4,000.00 | $1,066.57 | -$2,391.37 |
| John Richardson | ALCE | ALCE | ALCE |
District 8
| Candidate | Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edward Burroughs III (incumbent) | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Carlton Carter | ALCE | ALCE | ALCE |
| Stephanie Hinton | ALCE | ALCE | ALCE |
Campaign themes
2016
Olivo answered the following questions from Prince George's County Advocates for Better Schools:
| “ |
What are two or three special challenges that you see in your school board district, and how would you work with the community to address them? As a member of the Board of Education, my top priorities are the following:
I will work with the community to address these priorities in the same manner listed above in question #1: by being present, engaged, and responsive. The school system has recently been under fire for several alleged incidents of abuse and neglect. How will you work to increase a sense of respect and security, for children and their families, in our school system? The allegations of sexual abuse are nothing short of appalling. That the teachers, staff, and administration at Judge Sylvania Woods Elementary were not trained to spot suspect behavior is beyond ridiculous and borders culpable neglect. I cannot imagine how difficult it is for the students and their families to recover, though I suspect they will never fully recover. We have let down our children and have lost public trust. On the whole, I support the findings of the Student Safety Task Force. One area that I feel needs to be emphasized are the procedures to immediately remove anyone who is accused. Once removed, Child Protective Services should conduct a thorough investigation in an expeditious manner. The Washington Post reported recently that the Head Start teacher who forced the child to mop was moved by PGCPS to a new school (also in District 4, by the way) rather than put on administrative leave or fired. That is absolutely unacceptable! If elected, I will work to ensure that PGCPS has across-the-board uniform training on sexual abuse prevention and detection, as well as procedures and practices that avoid putting students in questionable situations and risk of abuse. At the time of these abuses, training was different across the district and was delivered piecemeal from school to school. The task force report recommends that all training be uniform, delivered in the same manner, and exempts no one from receiving it. It also recommends that the technology be capable of reporting real-time updates on those entering the building for service, volunteering, or visiting. I’ve been in schools where the equipment to scan visitors in is broken or unable to connect to do its job. We need to ensure that the tools we are using are working properly. What should be done about the massive backlog of building maintenance, renovation, and school construction? As a board member, what impact could you have on the school system’s capital programs? I followed the work of the Master Plan Support Project and believe it was a worthwhile effort because it collected data on every school in the district. It is crucial that the Board of Education, County Council, and General Assembly use this data to prioritize building maintenance, renovation, and school construction. In the past, these entities have done a terrible job of determining the allocation of capital improvement funds as they have let the process become about politics rather than the needs of our children. PGCPS spent a great deal of money and time on the Master Plan Support Project and now they must use that data in their decision-making. I will strongly advocate and work to build consensus amongst the Board so that the CIP discussions don’t break down into North vs. South vs. Central, but that we follow the data-driven recommendations and priorities. How will you address the transportation issues within the school system? For example, some school buses have been showing up late — or not at all, some bus rides are more than an hour long, and there are reports of students being pulled out of class before the end of the school day in order to catch their bus. This is a funding issue, plain and simple. We need to prioritize funding to hire additional bus drivers and to optimize routes. What improvements would you like to see in our special education program? Are you in favor of expanding PGCPS’s early intervention efforts? At age two, our son Nathaniel was nonverbal. Early intervention through the Prince George’s County Infants and Toddlers Program was invaluable to our family. With the support of his therapists, and hard work by him and us, he is back on track. Early intervention is crucial and absolutely needs to be expanded. Like many others, the recent reports of abuse have left me shaken. Aimee and I put Nathaniel on a PGCPS bus to special education services when he was a nonverbal two-year-old. I am heartbroken and angry that some of our babies were abused on their bus. Special Education is so important and we have a great deal of work to do to re-build trust in this area and across the entire system. What are your thoughts on the way the Talented and Gifted (TAG) program is currently operating? Some of our TAG centers have waiting lists. Should every child who is TAG identified be given the opportunity to attend a TAG center? Every child who is TAG identified should receive high-quality TAG enhancements and supports. I am extremely familiar with the TAG program as my older son is a twice exceptional (2E) TAG student at a TAG center. He has some learning challenges while still being TAG identified. As with most issues, there isn’t one answer to the issue of waiting lists. I will work to ensure TAG-in-the-classroom expansion at our elementary schools. This will help strengthen our neighborhood schools and likely shorten the waiting lists at our TAG centers. In my opinion, the real challenge for TAG comes at the middle school level. It is nearly impossible for a TAG student who stays at their neighborhood elementary school to get into a TAG middle school as those slots are taken by the students moving from the TAG elementary center to the TAG middle school. I will work to add TAG spaces to our TAG middle school programs to allow students to move from their neighborhood elementary school into a TAG middle school program. The demand for language immersion schools and other specialty programs is high. What are your thoughts on expanding language immersion programs and other specialty programs? My younger son is at Cesar Chavez Dual Spanish Immersion, so I understand this area as well. As with TAG, I believe this answer is two-fold. First, we must work to improve our neighborhood schools. Our families should not feel that the specialty program schools are their only chance at a great PGCPS education. Rather, we need to have strong neighborhood schools so that parents feel they have real options between their neighborhood school and a specialty program. In our case, my wife, Aimee, and I have been involved with our neighborhood school since our oldest son was only two years old. We were very much looking forward to Nathaniel starting kindergarten at our neighborhood school. Yet, I also thought it would be wonderful for Nathaniel to attend a Spanish Immersion program because of his Mexican heritage. So we entered that lottery. We were surprised when he got a spot, and, I’ll be honest, both Aimee and I were a little sad that he wouldn’t be attending our neighborhood school. I want every family who enters the lottery to have excellent options for specialty programs and for their neighborhood school. A judge in Connecticut recently ruled that the state must overhaul its educational system with particular attention to equitable funding. What aspects of that case are relevant to Prince George’s County and what impact could a board member have on funding inequities? I’d suggest that this case is relevant to Prince George’s County in two ways. First, certain pieces of the formula funding we receive from the State have to do with equity in the cost of educating students. As a BOE member, I will be in Annapolis during session to advocate for full funding and I will continue to build on the relationships I have with our lawmakers to ensure we get our fair share of that money. (Hogan has held back education funding in the past two years.) Second, we do see disparity across the County between neighborhoods. I strongly believe that we need to work to bring our middle class families back to the school system and that when families opt-in to our public schools we will see improvements. What do you think are the greatest obstacles currently facing the Board of Education? As a board member, how will you contribute to solving those problems and increasing the Board’s effectiveness? As an outsider, it is clear to me that the Board of Education is dysfunctional. I am a grassroots advocate and will work closely with the District 4 parents and community members to make sure that the entire Board hears from them. Let’s be honest, right now, not too many people beyond the PGCABS membership are actively engaged in advocating to the Board of Education. We need more engagement to make the changes our children deserve.[7][8] |
” |
| —Abel Olivo (2016) | ||
Demographics
Prince George's County underperformed in comparison to the state of Maryland in terms of higher education achievement in 2013. The United States Census Bureau found that 29.8 percent of Prince George's County residents aged 25 years and older had attained a bachelor's degree, compared to 36.8 percent for Maryland as a whole. The median household income in Prince George's County was $73,623, compared to $73,538 for the state of Maryland. The poverty rate in Prince George's County was 9.4 percent, compared to 9.8 percent for the entire state.[9]
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Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms 'Abel Olivo' 'Prince George's County Public Schools'. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
- Prince George's County Public Schools, Maryland
- Prince George's County Public Schools elections (2016)
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Maryland State Board of Elections, "Prince George's County 2016 Presidential Primary Election Local Candidates List," February 10, 2016
- ↑ Abel Olivo for School Board, "About," accessed October 18, 2016
- ↑ Maryland State Board of Elections, "Reporting Schedule," accessed February 10, 2016
- ↑ Maryland State Board of Elections, "EAffidavit Filing," accessed February 10, 2016
- ↑ Maryland Campaign Reporting Information System, "View Filed Reports Information," accessed October 30, 2016
- ↑ Maryland Campaign Reporting Information System, "View Filed Reports Information," accessed April 18, 2016
- ↑ Prince George's County Advocates for Better Schools, "Q & A with District 4 Board of Education Candidate Abel Olivo," October 14, 2016
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedCensus - ↑ Maryland State Board of Elections, "Voter Registration Activity Report," March 2014
