By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Early voting is open through June 18, and the primary is June 23. Frederick County voters face one of the most consequential — and most overlooked — races on the ballot: four seats on the Frederick County Board of Education, with 14 candidates competing for them.
Because it’s a nonpartisan contest open to all registered voters regardless of party, the BOE race can get buried beneath the partisan primary contests. It shouldn’t. The board sets curriculum policy, approves the district’s annual operating budget, and hires the superintendent. With more than 47,000 students across 69 schools, the direction of Frederick County Public Schools is a governance question with real stakes.
Here’s what the research shows on each candidate.
The Incumbents
Dean Rose is the sitting board president, seeking a second term. Rose was elected in 2022 and has served as both vice president and president of the board. He runs on institutional momentum — literacy and math scores have improved in some grade levels, and he points to FCPS construction projects coming in on time and on budget. Rose works in insurance and previously coached basketball in FCPS for 13 years. He represents a steady, managerial approach to the board’s role.
Rae Gallagher was appointed to fill a vacancy in 2020, won a full term in 2022, and currently serves as board vice president. She has served in leadership roles for most of her tenure and carries the endorsement of the Frederick County Democratic Party. She is the incumbent most aligned with the progressive wing of the current board.
The Reform-Oriented Challengers
Three candidates cleared the bar set by Better Maryland Schools, a parent-led, nonpartisan organization that evaluates candidates on academic outcomes, budget efficiency, parental rights, and independence from union funding. They recommend Shelley Potter, Geoff Seidel, and Tyler Walker, and encourage voters to use their full candidate ratings to select a fourth.
Shelley Potter is a Frederick County native and educator with more than 15 years of experience teaching and leading schools across the United States and internationally. Her background spans classroom instruction and school leadership, giving her both a practitioner’s perspective and an administrator’s view of how districts operate.
Geoffrey Seidel brings 47 years of nursing, cancer research, and leadership experience — including years supporting precision medicine clinical trials at the National Cancer Institute. His platform is direct: “Parents are not obstacles, they are the foundation for student success.” He backs academic rigor, fiscal discipline, and keeping ideological content out of classrooms.
Tyler Walker has a thinner public profile than some of the other leading candidates, but made Better Maryland Schools’ shortlist based on their evaluation process, which includes candidate questionnaires and direct interviews.
The Conservative-Aligned Candidate
Heather Fletcher is the most explicitly right-aligned candidate in the race. A Point of Rocks resident who ran as a write-in for the board in 2024, she is running a full campaign this cycle and is the top fundraiser in the field with roughly $20,000 raised to date. Fletcher’s platform centers on school choice, parental rights, fiscal responsibility, and keeping what she calls “ideologies that may infringe upon individual family values” out of Frederick County classrooms. She is endorsed by the Republican Club of Frederick County. Fletcher supports school resource officers and backs expanding career and technical education pathways alongside a strong academic foundation.
The Education Insiders
David Migdal spent 21 years as an assistant principal in FCPS, working at Carroll Manor, Whittier, and Sugarloaf elementary schools, and has 30 years in education overall. He retired in 2025 and is running on an insider’s knowledge of where the district falls short — particularly on special education caseloads and early literacy gaps. He notes that only 59% of third-grade students in FCPS scored proficient in English language arts in 2024, and that multilingual learners and students with disabilities score significantly lower. He wants more resources directed to early intervention and argues that experience inside the system is what the board needs.
Nathan Foltz is a former special education and physical education teacher who grew up in Frederick County and taught for more than 15 years in West Virginia. His campaign focuses on special education funding — particularly in the context of federal budget pressures — and on scrutiny of FCPS’s administrative practices following the district’s 2021 DOJ settlement over the misuse of seclusion and restraint against students with disabilities. That settlement, which involved more than 7,000 incidents over roughly two and a half school years, resulted in the elimination of seclusion rooms and significant reforms to district policy. Foltz argues the board still owes families full accountability on that history.
The Progressive-Aligned Candidates
Chloe Celeste is running under the campaign committee name “Comrades for Celeste” — a signal of her political orientation that is a matter of public record in state campaign finance filings. Limited additional public profile is available.
Jess Douglass is among the top three fundraisers in the race. She participated in the League of Women Voters candidate forum in April. Her platform leans toward expanding student support services and opposing reductions to the district’s equity-focused programs.
Casey Day is also among the top fundraisers and participated in the League of Women Voters forums. She has not clearly delineated a conservative or reform-oriented platform.
Lower-Profile Candidates
Maria Carrasco, Samuel Rosenbloom, and Chad King Wilson Sr. round out the field. Rosenbloom runs under the slogan “Education NOT indoctrination,” which places him in the conservative-reform lane, but he did not make Better Maryland Schools’ final recommendations and has a limited public footprint in the race.
How to Think About Your Four Votes
The BOE race is open to all registered voters regardless of party, and all four seats are decided in this primary — not in November — because the contest is nonpartisan. That makes June 23 the general election in practical terms.
The ideological divide in this race is real. On one side are candidates who emphasize academic standards, parental rights, budget efficiency, and skepticism of ideological programming. On the other are candidates who emphasize expanding student support services, preserving equity programs, and union-backed priorities.
For voters who lean toward the reform and accountability side of that divide, the best-researched slate is Fletcher, Potter, Seidel, and Walker. Fletcher brings explicit conservative alignment; the other three cleared the nonpartisan Better Maryland Schools evaluation on academic and parental-rights criteria.
For voters who want an incumbent with a track record, Rose has governed as a moderate institutionalist and currently serves as board president.
Voters can review the full Better Maryland Schools candidate ratings — including questionnaire responses and their scoring methodology — at bettermarylandschools.org.
Early voting runs through June 18 at five locations countywide. Election Day is June 23, polls open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
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