At the Thursday, March 24, 2022, Calvert County Board of Education Meeting, members voted and approved Townsel with a 4-0 vote to become the Superintendent and will be effective started July 1, 2022, Townsel will serve a four year term, dependent on the approval of the Maryland State Superintendent of Schools.
The Board is engaged in a search to replace the current superintendent, Dr. Daniel D. Curry, who announced earlier this year that he would retire in June 2022.
Patrick Nutter was the only vote to abstain and provided the following comment for his reason.
“If you give me a moment. You know, there’s no really good time to injure yourself. But I swear to god, I injured myself at a really bad time. And i was supposed to meet with the recommendations and I did not have that chance.
The world doesn’t stop because I have an injury. I’m not opposing anything, but I am going to abstain from this vote because I feel better if I could have met in person this candidate. Now — it’s not his fault I injured myself. So, like said, time goes on. It doesn’t stop because I had an injury.
But, I just can’t, until I have personal contact, and see a person, we have seen him over the, I guess, site — what is it called the visual thing. But you know, we had a visual.
But I didn’t have a personal contact. You can tell a lot about a person with personal contact.
When you ask them a question, you can tell by their body language certain things. But, I am not opposing, but I am going abstain. If I abstain from that, then I am going to abstain from the contract.”
Calvert County (MD) Branch of the NAACP made the following Facebook post. “Congratulations to Dr. Andrae Townsel, Ed.D., new Superintendent of schools for Calvert County (Md). He is the first African American to hold this position”
About Dr. Andrae Townse – l earned a football scholarship to Howard University in Washington, DC. During his time at Howard, he earned his bachelors, masters, and doctorate all from Howard University, and began his educational career in the District of Columbia. He had the privilege to work in every level of the educational system and excelled. He served as a student teacher, teacher, head coach (football and basketball), athletic director, dean of students, central office specialist, assistant principal, high school principal, assistant superintendent, and a current highly effective superintendent.
As the superintendent of Benton Harbor Area Schools, he successfully eliminated the budget deficit after 14 years of being in the red, increased the salary of all teachers after having their salaries frozen for over 10 years, and successfully developed a 5-year district Strategic Plan. The United Way of Southwest Michigan has highlighted him and his district as the Education Innovator of the Year in 2021. He was nominated as the 2021 Superintendent of the Year in Michigan. He successfully navigated the pandemic, whereas the board of education gave a vote of confidence.
His district was awarded $3 million dollars over the next 5 years to focus on and improve literacy. They were 1 out of 5 districts to receive this award through a competitive grant application process.
As an assistant superintendent in the Wayne-Westland Community School District, Dr. Townsel pioneered the work of climate, culture, and social-emotional learning. In a district of nearly 11,000 students and 20 school buildings, he hired and developed climate and culture coaches for each building and provided yearlong professional development to effectively address the disproportionality in discipline data as well as improve the overall behavior of students district-wide to ensure an increase in academic achievement. He has a strong knowledge of school finance and showed great fiscal responsibility at all levels. He generated nearly $250k in grant funding to support the work of restorative practices and social-emotional learning (SEL)
