Maryland State Board of Education

The State Board of Education is the voice of the public in its role as policy maker for Maryland’s public schools, public libraries, and vocational rehabilitation services.

It solicits the views of interested groups and the public at large on all important issues. The State Board is a 12-member body appointed by the governor. Members bring to their task a wide range of professional and civic experience. Members serve staggered four-year terms and may serve two full terms. A student member serves a one-year term.

The state superintendent of schools is chosen by the Board for a four-year, renewable term and acts as its secretary-treasurer. He does not have a vote but does have an advisory role and is the administrative head of the State Department of Education.

The Board sets the state’s education policies and standards for pre-kindergarten through high school and for Maryland’s public libraries and correctional education and vocational rehabilitation services. It passes regulations that have the force of law and is empowered to interpret the true meaning and intent of the law. It also reviews and approves three annual budgets (the Department of Education headquarters budget, the state aid to local education budget, and state-aided institutions budget) before they’re passed on to the governor’s office for approval or revision and then to the General Assembly for final action. The Board is also required to decide all controversies brought before it that arise under the law. Traditionally, however, the Board tempers its considerable legal power with respect for the principle of local control of schools. Each of Maryland’s 24 school systems has its own board of education.

James H. DeGraffenreidt, Jr., (President) is the former Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of WGL Holdings, Inc., the parent company of Washington Gas. He also served as Chairman and CEO of Washington Gas, the natural gas utility serving over 1,000,000 customers in the Washington metropolitan area and surrounding region. During his tenure at WGL Mr. DeGraffenreidt provided leadership for the energy industry as well as important community institutions. In addition to serving on the boards of the Walters Art Museum and the Maryland Science Center, Mr. DeGraffenreidt completed terms as  Chairman of the American Gas Association and Co-Chair of the Alliance to Save Energy during over a decade of service on each of those boards.

Mr. DeGraffenreidt has remained committed to industry leadership as well as community service. He currently serves on the boards of Harbor Bankshares Corporation, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, and Vectren Corporation.

Mr. DeGraffenreidt received the degrees of Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from Columbia University in 1978 and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale College in 1974. He is married with four children and resides in Baltimore City.

Dr. Charlene M. Dukes, (Vice President) is the president of Prince George's Community College and has twenty-six years of progressive leadership experience and administrative responsibility in higher education. From 2002 through 2006, she served on the Prince George's County Board of Education and chaired the Student Support, Student Appeals, and Personnel Committees. In addition she holds membership in a variety of professional organizations, including the National Council on Student Development, an affiliate of the American Association of Community Colleges; the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators; the Council of Law in Higher Education; and the Maryland Network, an affiliate of the Office of Women in Higher Education/American Council on Education.

She has participated in the Executive Leadership Institute sponsored by the League for Innovation, Women in Leadership sponsored by the Office of Women in Higher Education/American Council on Education, and the National Leadership Seminar sponsored the Association of Community College Trustees.

Dr. Dukes has a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education with an English concentration from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a Master's and Doctorate in Administrative and Policy Studies from the University of Pittsburgh.

Kate Walsh has served as the president of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) since 2002. Her commitment to addressing educational inequities and the nation’s achievement gap has defined her career, including a long tenure as a senior program officer at The Abell Foundation, as well as with the Baltimore City Public Schools. Her work has tackled a broad spectrum of children’s educational needs—from founding the successful Ingenuity Project for preparing gifted Baltimore City students in mathematics and science to a unique boarding school located in Kenya, East Africa, which served at-risk boys who had been attending Baltimore middle schools. Ms. Walsh also started the first alternative certification program for teachers in Maryland, a project which led to her strong interest in teacher quality. She has authored a number of papers on the subject of teacher quality, focusing on the policy improvements needed in states, schools of education and by teacher unions.

Ms. Walsh lives in Baltimore County and is the parent of four children.

Ivan C.A. Walks, M.D. is the CEO and President of Ivan Walks and Associates. He is a former Chief Health Officer for the District of Columbia and was the Director of the Department of Public Health for the District. During his tenure, Dr. Walks re-engineered a failing public hospital system into the DC Healthcare Alliance and was instrumental in developing proactive programs and interventions that resulted in a twenty percent drop in infant mortality, the lowest rate and unprecedented reduction in the District’s history. During the anthrax attacks in October 2001, Dr. Walks became the regional incident commander charged with coordination and response of local, regional and federal public health resources. For his leadership of this effort, Dr. Walks was designated “Public Health Hero” by the American Public Health Association and has since become internationally recognized in the areas of public health surveillance, health literacy, cultural competency, critical incident response and emergency management.

Dr. Walks received his M.D. from the University of California at Davis School of Medicine, is a U.S. military veteran, a licensed neuro-psychiatrist, and is a graduate of the Leadership for State Health Officials program of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Dr. Walks is married, has three children and resides in Montgomery County.

Donna Hill Staton’s diverse legal career includes nearly a decade of service as Maryland’s Deputy Attorney General (1997-2006).  She also served as an Associate Judge on the Circuit Court for Howard County, becoming the County’s first African-American trial judge and the second African-American woman to serve on any Maryland circuit court. Before joining the bench, Ms. Staton was a litigation partner with Piper & Marbury, LLP (DLA Piper). She currently consults on various projects with the University of Maryland School of Law, where she is an adjunct professor.

Ms. Staton’s long history of involvement with youth development initiatives includes coordinating attorney-mentoring programs with Baltimore City schools, the High School Mock Trial Program and pro bono legal representation of children in need of assistance. In 2000, she was named one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women by the Daily Record and has been recognized as a Woman of Achievement in Maryland History.

Ms. Staton is a graduate of Howard County public schools and earned degrees from Princeton University (A.B. 1979) and The George Washington University (J.D. 1982).  She resides in Howard County.

Dr. S. James Gates, Jr. is the John S. Toll Professor of Physics, Director of the Center for String and Particle Theory at the University of Maryland , College Park . Dr. Gates received two Bachelors of Science degrees, in mathematics and physics, as well as his PhD in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He also completed postgraduate studies at both Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology (CalTech).

Dr. Gates is the author on over 200 scientific publications, including the book L’arte della Fisica (The Art of Physics) released in 2006. His career also includes numbers of appearances in video science documents, such as Superstring Theory: The DNA of Reality, a popular-level DVD series, also released in 2006. Dr. Gates has delivered many public addresses on topics at the boundary of education, diversity, science, culture, and religion, always in the effort to inform the public about his field of theoretical physics.

Since 1972, Dr. Gates has continuously taught science or mathematics at the university level at CalTech, Howard University, MIT, Gustavus Adolphus College, and the University of Maryland . He has also supervised a number of research internships for high school students. In the spring of 2009, he was appointed to the U.S. President's Council of Advisors on Science & Technology (PCAST) and serves as co-chair of its working group on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) preeminence for the nation. Additionally, Dr. Gates holds fellowship status in the National Society of Black Physicists, the American Physics Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (South Africa). Dr. Gates resides in Prince George's County.

Madhu Sidhu is the Executive Director and Program Development Manager for Character Counts! Kent County, a non-profit organization active in character education. For the past 20 years, as a parent, she has devoted her life to education and promoting constructive parent involvement therein. She has been actively involved in the Maryland PTA, both as a board member and as chair of its Curriculum and Instruction committee. She served as the president of the County Council of PTAs, high school PTSA, middle school PTA, and as vice president of the elementary school PTA. She has been awarded life-time membership by Maryland PTA.

Mrs. Sidhu served on School Improvement Teams in schools at all three levels. Currently she is a member of her school district’s STEM steering committee and continues to serve on the boards and committees of other local organizations that promote children’s issues and programs.

Mrs. Sidhu is married, has two children and resides in Chestertown, Kent County. She was recognized as the 1981 Volunteer of the Year in Centre County, Pennsylvania and recently as the Person of the Year by her county’s only radio station.

Mrs. Sidhu graduated from SNDT Women’s University in Bombay, India with a degree in Sociology and Psychology and from Richard Stockton College of New Jersey with a special major in Information Science and Library Science.

Guffrie M. Smith, Jr. is a retired educator with a diverse career including 33.5 years with Calvert County Public Schools (1964 – 1975 and 1981-2004) and 6.5 years with the Maryland State Department of Education (1975-1981). In Calvert County , he served as a teacher, vice principal, principal, supervisor, coordinator of Healthy Families, director of curriculum/instruction and coordinator of a resource center. With the State, he served as specialist in migrant education, specialist in Title I and Migrant Branch Chief. Throughout his career, Guffrie has served on regional and statewide boards and committees including the State’s Professional Standards and Teacher Education Board, social studies curriculum writing and assessment teams and the Multicultural Education Task Force.

Mr. Smith is active in the community with the Calvert Crusade for Children, Calvert Alliance Against Substance Abuse, Christmas in April, Kiwanis Club of Calvert, Calvert County Historical Society and Old Walville School Restoration Committee. In 1988, Guffrie was appointed to a local bank board; in 2003, he was honored as King of Calvert’s United Way Mardi Gras; the Maryland State Teachers Association granted him their Martin Luther King Community Award; and in 2009, Guffrie was awarded the Louis L. Goldstein Award by Calvert’s Democratic Central Committee.

Mr. Smith is a graduate of St. Mary’s County Public Schools and earned his B.S. and M.A. degrees from Bowie State University. He has participated in post graduate studies at the University of Maryland and Nova University. He is married, has two daughters and resides in Calvert County.

Luisa Montero-Diaz is the Director of the Maryland Division of the Latin American Youth Center, a youth development organization serving minority and immigrant youth by providing comprehensive, culturally sensitive programs in education, employment, and social services. She oversees three sites in Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties, which assist over 1000 young people annually. Ms. Montero-Diaz is a member of the Governor’s Workforce Investment Board and Vice President of the Human Services Coalition of Prince George’s County. She has over twenty-five years of experience working on a variety of local, national and international programs, including with the District of Columbia Government’s Executive Office of the Mayor, the National Grants Partnership, and USAID where she was Program Director for an international development project providing training to adults in Central America. She began her career as a speech/language therapist for Prince George’s County Public Schools serving elementary/middle school students, and worked as a vocational rehabilitation trainer focusing on adults with developmental disabilities. She served as a special educator and trainer in the US Peace Corps. Ms. Montero-Diaz earned a B.S. from Appalachian State University and an M.S. from the University of Maryland. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland Rawlings Fellowship. She has a son in the Montgomery County Public School System and lives in Takoma Park.

Nina E. Marks, Student Member is currently a senior at Dulaney High School in Baltimore County. She is the first Student Member on the State board from Baltimore County since the position was created. Currently she is class vice president and is actively involved in her school student government organization. Aside from being involved in her school student government, Ms. Marks has been involved in the Maryland Association of Student councils as an appointed staff member in the positions of Health and Social Issues coordinator and Publications Coordinator. 

At Dulaney high school she is a member of the National Honors Society, a staff member on the literary magazine "Sequel," and a member of the Dulanians, the student ambassador club. Within the community she participates actively in her church youth group. Ms. Marks is employed at the Maryland Athletic Club as a life guard among other positions. 

Ms. Marks lives her life by the philosophy of one of her favorite educators Ms. Frizzle, "Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy" as well as her own philosophy that if you are driven by passion you can do anything that you want. 

Bernard J. Sadusky, Ed.D., Interim State Superintendent Bernard J. Sadusky, former Superintendent of the Queen Anne’s County Public School System, in June was named Interim State Superintendent of Schools by the Maryland State Board of Education. He took over the reins of the Maryland State Department of Education on July 1, upon the retirement of Nancy S. Grasmick. Dr. Sadusky served as superintendent of the Queen Anne’s school system from 1994 to 2007. After his retirement, he joined the staff at the Maryland State Department of Education, serving as policy liaison with local school systems. He spent more than 30 years as an administrator and teacher in the high-performing Queen Anne’s system. Dr. Sadusky received his bachelor’s degree in biology from King’s College in Pennsylvania. He holds a master’s degree in psychology from Washington College and a doctorate in educational administration from Nova-Southeastern University. He was Maryland’s Superintendent of the Year in 2007, and has received numerous commendations throughout his career. Maryland has received several national accolades in recent years. Education Week in 2011 named Maryland the number one school system in the nation for an unprecedented third straight year. The College Board followed by citing Maryland student success in the rigorous Advanced Placement exams as the nation’s best, also for the third consecutive year. Finally, the Washington Post’s Challenge Index for the third year straight year found that Maryland had the highest percentage in the nation of rigorous high schools.

The Maryland State Department of Education does not discriminate on the basis of age, ancestry, color, creed, gender identity and expression, genetic information, marital status, disability, national origin, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation in matters affecting employment or in providing access to programs.