Students from all over MCPS came to Watkins Mill High School on February 22 to nominate the final two candidates for this year’s Student Member Of the Board of Education.

After three hours of political debate at NomCon, sophomore Alex Abrosimov from Richard Montgomery High School and junior Eric Guerci from Bethesda Chevy Chase High School stand as the last two remaining runners after winning the popular vote over sophomore Olivia Gonzalez from Blair High School and junior Liam Kim from Wheaton High School.  Guerci served as the SMOB this year.

Principal Carol Goddard agreed to host NomCon at Watkins Mill because “we’d love to have it hosted here,” she said.

Both the students and candidates agreed that it was the right decision. “I really enjoyed NomCon at Watkins Mill because the people and the facility (especially the huge auditorium) were great, so it was definitely the right choice,” Abrosimov said.

During NomCon, the four candidates campaigned, debated and expressed their ideas as the future SMOB. Issues such as open lunch, the achievement gap, school funding, food trucks and more were all addressed, but each candidate had his or her own distinctive views about the topics.

The candidates all had one common theme: their focus on the students.  They all wanted to gain both the respect and votes of the students during the debates and hopefully represent the entire student body of MCPS as the future SMOB.

During NomCon, the main two issues addressed were school funding and the achievement gap. Gonzalez took great effort during the debate to point out the achievement gap because she identifies as an individual who is encumbered by it.

In response to Gonzalez, the remaining three candidates offered a rebuttal toward Gonzalez’s view on the achievement gap.

School funding was another big topic at Nomcon, and the conversation was largely dominated by Abrosimov and Guerci. Abrosimov believed that we should increase school funding, while Guerci dismissed his idea and brought up an alternate answer to the topic to have more hands-on activities with the funding received.

NomCon as a whole brought together the good, the amazing amount of school programs and school diversity;  and the bad of MCPS that still needs to be addressed.

Abrosimov added, “SMOB is important because they are the sole voice of the students on the BOE.” One of these two candidates will succeed and voice our opinions as a future student member of the board, so pay attention to their messages when the general election happens.