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Board Members

Frank Aquino, Chairman
(Term expires 2010)

Frank Aquino is a corporate attorney who been a resident of Howard County since 1994. He currently lives in Ellicott City with his wife Mary and their three children, all of whom attend Howard County Public Schools. Mr. Aquino has been a public education advocate for many years. His involvement started with efforts to address issues pertaining to overcrowding and redistricting, the need for new school construction, and the funding mechanisms to support it.

Mr. Aquino has served on many school system committees, including the committee to draft a Civility Policy, and multiple terms as a member of the Boundary Line Advisory Committee and the Board’s Operating Budget Review Committee. He also served on the County Executive’s Spending Affordability Advisory Committee. Mr. Aquino has been an active member of the PTA Council of Howard County and the PTA Executive Committees of each of his children’s schools. He is the Baltimore Chapter President of the Association of Corporate Counsel, and he has volunteered his time as a coach for his son’s Howard County Youth Program baseball team.

Mr. Aquino sees Howard County’s number one ranking as an invaluable asset to the community and is committed to seeing that the school system maintains its ranking as the best public school system in the state of Maryland.

Ellen Flynn Giles, Vice Chairman
(Term expires 2008)

Ellen Flynn Giles’ two decades of volunteer involvement with the Howard County Public School System have been highlighted by sixteen years with the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) to the Board of Education, including an eight-year tenure as chairman. Her experience has included service on dozens of Board and school system committees addressing topics from scheduling and curriculum development to policy review and facility planning. She also serves on several other advisory committees, including the Howard County School Health Council and the Superintendent’s District Planning Team.

Mrs. Giles has been an executive member of the PTAs at schools attended by her children and can still be found volunteering at Atholton High School. Her twenty years of service to children was recognized with the Life Achievement Award from the National PTA in 2003. Also active in the wider community, she is a member of the League of Women Voters, Business Women’s Network, and Women’s Giving Circle and serves as a Trustee of Vision Howard County.

Mrs. Giles is an editor and analyst for the energy division of McGraw-Hill. Along with her husband Ron, she has resided in the Scaggsville/ North Laurel area for twenty-two years. Their four children are all graduates of the Howard County School System.

Larry Cohen
(Term expires 2010)

Larry Cohen was born and raised in Queens, New York City. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree and Master’s Degree in Political Science from Brooklyn College in New York City and a Masters Degree in Educational Administration and Supervision from Loyola College in Baltimore. Mr. Cohen worked for the Howard County School System for 28 years in the capacity of principal, assistant principal, teacher, pupil personnel worker, and administrative liaison.

Mr. Cohen’s interests and knowledge in public education and human development have led to his service as a consultant to the Office of Student Affairs at Howard Community College and as a part-time instructor and consultant at the University of Maryland in conjunction with the Howard County School System’s Office of Professional Development. He is a weekly workshop presenter on Leadership for the National Youth Leadership Conference in Bethesda, Maryland, and a frequent workshop presenter and keynote speaker to parents, teachers, and students. Mr. Cohen has been the co-host, co-writer, and co-producer of “Consumer’s Corner,” a long- running public service television show on Fox 45 in Baltimore, and the co-host of a call-in radio show, “Education 2000.”

Mr. Cohen and his wife Rita have two children, Rachel and Susie, who both attended Howard County schools.

Sandra French
(Term expires 2010)

Sandra French begins her third term on the Board of Education after serving from 1992 to 2004. In 2005, she received the Willis Award for Outstanding School Board Service from the Maryland Association of Boards of Education (MABE). She has also received Howard County’s Visionary Leadership for Music Award and the Reading Council’s Friend of Literacy Award. Her leadership positions included Board Chairman and Vice Chairman; MABE President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary and Legislative Committee Chairman, and National School Boards Association conference presenter. She was also appointed to the State Board of Education’s Visionary Panel for Better Schools, the Governor’s Task Force on Class Size, and the Governor’s Task Force on Education Funding.

With an A.B. degree from Muhlenberg College and a master’s equivalent from MSDE, Mrs. French taught in both Anne Arundel and Howard County school systems. For twelve years she advocated with the PTA from the school to the national levels. She presided as President of Howard County PTA Council and Maryland PTA Vice President for Legislation. She received Life Membership Awards from both the National PTA and the Maryland PTA, was nominated for Howard County Unsung Hero, and was recognized twice by MSDE as an Outstanding Volunteer.

Mrs. French is a member of the Achievement Initiative for Maryland’s Minority Students (AIMMS) Council. She serves on the Board of Directors for both the Howard County Arts Council and Rebuilding Together Howard County, and is a graduate of Leadership Howard County. She and her husband, residents of Howard County since 1971, have two sons who are graduates of engineering colleges at Cornell and Clemson Universities. Both attended Howard County public schools, kindergarten through grade 12.

Patricia S. Gordon
(Term expires 2010)

Patricia Gordon was elected to the Board of Education in 2000 to a six-year term and has been reelected to serve a four-year term. She was born in New York City where she received all of her education. She counts among her experience two terms on the Westbury (NY) Board of Education. She holds a BA degree from Hunter College and an MS degree in Education from Queens College. She also studied at Fordham University under a Ford Foundation Fellowship, where she received a Professional Certificate in School Administration.

Mrs. Gordon was an elementary teacher and reading specialist in Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn for six years and a guidance counselor in a school in Queens for three and a half years. After returning from her study at Fordham University, she served for over 16 years as principal of Public School 123 in Queens. Following her “retirement” from public education, she served as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Education of York College, a branch of City University, where she taught methods of teaching, language arts, introduction to classroom management, teaching in the inner city school, and supervised student teachers.

Mrs. Gordon moved to Howard County, which is home to her son and his family, almost 13 years ago and quickly involved herself in community and school affairs. For several years, she volunteered at Centennial Lane Elementary School as a reading tutor.

The County Executive recently re-appointed Mrs. Gordon to serve on the Howard County Martin Luther King Commission. She also serves on the Board of the Sexual Trauma Treatment and Advocacy Center. She has been a long-time member of the League of Women Voters and has worked as a Literacy Volunteer in Westbury, New York, and Howard County.

Diane Mikulis
(Term expires 2008)

A 25-year resident of Howard County, Diane Mikulis was elected to the Board in 2004. She served as Vice Chairman in 2005-06 and is currently on the board of directors of the Maryland Association of Boards of Education. She is the parent of three children in the Howard County School System -- one each at the elementary, middle and high school levels. For more than 10 years, Ms. Mikulis has been an education activist. She served on the executive boards of five different PTAs and the PTA Council of Howard County. She also served on Department of Education committees that addressed school boundary lines, report card revision, design of three new schools and naming two new schools.

Ms. Mikulis served as growth and planning coordinator for three schools. She led efforts to secure an addition at an overcrowded elementary school and to keep funding in the budget for the county’s 12th high school. She is an active volunteer at her children’s schools.

In her 17 years with a major corporation, Ms. Mikulis held positions in management, communications, marketing and business development. She has extensive experience in budgeting, strategic planning, customer satisfaction measurement and government relations. For five years she has worked as a freelance writer, authoring more than 60 feature articles on education for The Baltimore Sun.

Ms. Mikulis earned a Masters of Business Administration from Loyola College in Baltimore and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pittsburgh. She is on the executive management team and public relations director for Special Olympics Howard County, and an Assistant Scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop 757.

Janet Siddiqui, M.D.
(Term expires 2008)

Dr. Janet Siddiqui has been a resident of Howard County for over 20 years. She lives in Clarksville with her husband and three children. All three children have attended Howard County public schools. Currently her youngest child is in middle school and her middle child attends high school.

Dr. Siddiqui grew up in western New York and attended the State University of New York at Buffalo, where she completed her associate degree in Accounting and bachelor's degree in Biology. She went on to receive her medical degree from Eastern Virginia Medical School and completed her residency in pediatrics at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

For more than 12 years, Dr. Siddiqui has been a pediatrician with Johns Hopkins Community Physicians. During this time she has served the community of East Baltimore and for the past two years has expanded her practice to include the Odenton area. She is on the faculty of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and is a part-time instructor in pediatrics. She also teaches residents in her clinic.

Dr. Siddiqui has volunteered her time at a free health clinic. She has been a member of the PTA, the Citizens Advisory Committee to the Board of Education, and the school system’s Anti-bullying Task Force. She was appointed by the Governor of Maryland to serve on the Patuxent River Commission. In 2006, she presented a case study on childhood obesity at the Howard County American Heart Association Annual Gala.

As a parent and a pediatrician she is committed to children’s education, health and future.

Andrew Gavelek, Student Member 2007-2008

Student Board Member Andrew Gavelek is a senior at Reservoir High School. He is an honor roll student with plans to attend a military academy upon graduation. As a freshman, Andrew served as treasurer for the Class of 2008 and as a member of Future Business Leaders of America. He was named Reservoir Student of the Month in January 2007 and is a two-time recipient of the Minds in Motions Award. He is currently a member of the United States Naval Sea Cadet Corp and a member of the Reservoir Gators football team.

The Board of Education established the position of student member to provide students with a voice in the regular meetings of the board. The student member is a high school junior or senior elected by a plurality of student voters countywide. The student member serves a one-year term.