As the race for the Montgomery County Board of Education comes to a close, state campaign finance reports show newcomer Laura Stewart has raised the most money — with more than $31,000 in donations — of the six candidates running for three seats.
The reports also show that her opponent, incumbent Shebra Evans, and another incumbent, Lynne Harris, received donations of $6,000 each from SEIU Local 500, a local union for public sector workers.
Evans is facing off against Stewart, a former Montgomery County Council of PTAs (MCCPTA) leader for the board’s District 4 seat.
Harris, the school board vice president, and local attorney Rita Montoya are competing for the at-large seat. Two newcomers, online teacher Brenda Diaz and Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) teacher Natalie Zimmerman, are the two candidates for the District 2 seat. Diaz formerly taught at Gaithersburg High School.
School board elections are nonpartisan and board members serve four-year terms. The school board is divided into five geographic district seats, as well as the two at-large seats. To run for a district seat, candidates must live in the district they are running to represent. However, all voters in the county may vote for candidates representing each district regardless of where the voter lives. For more information on the candidates, check out MoCo360’s voter guide.
While candidates brought in a varying amount of money from donors, most spent their donations — in some cases amounting to thousands of dollars — on campaign materials such as brochures, stickers, yard signs and mailers.
Here’s a look at how much the candidates have raised this year and their biggest and most notable donors, according to state campaign finance reports filed from January until Oct. 25, the most recent filing deadline.
At-large
Lynne Harris
Harris has received $15,199 in campaign contributions in 2024.
Her single biggest donor is the political action committee of SEIU Local 500, the labor union that represents public sector workers including teachers, paraprofessionals and part-time faculty. The committee has donated a total of $6,000 to Harris’ campaign since the beginning of the year.
The next biggest donor was Olney resident Khristy Kartsakalis, a former MCCPTA leader, with a total of $1,073, including in-kind donations. In-kind donations are non-cash contributions of goods, services, time or expertise. Cynthia Simonson of Rockville donated $1,000 in total. Simonson formerly served as the MCCPTA vice president of educational issues and was the group’s president from 2020-2022.
Other notable donors include Catherine Leggett. The longtime philanthropist and wife of former county executive Isiah Leggett donated $300.
Harris also donated $100 to her campaign.
Rita Montoya
Rita Montoya received $27,663 in campaign contributions this year — $12,464 more than her opponent. More than $8,400 of that total came from Montoya’s own pocket, split between $7,000 in candidate loans and $1,403 in in-kind donations.
Montoya’s biggest donor was the Maryland State Education Association’s (MSEA) political action committee, which donated $4,000. MSEA is the union that represents teachers in Maryland.
The next two biggest contributions – at $1,000 each – came from Monica Abrams of Bethesda and Jonathan Long of Germantown. Abrams listed her occupation as a homemaker, according to state campaign finance data. Long, according to the same records, is employed by the Congressional Federal Credit Union.
Other notable donors for Montoya include David Stein, president of the local teachers union Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), who contributed $200. The contribution was an individual donation and not from the MCEA.
District 2
Natalie Zimmerman
Zimmerman received $4,529 in contributions this year.
Her two biggest donors were Olney dentist Henry Lee, who sat on the school board for three months in 2004, according to The Washington Post, and Yashar Davoodi, who is employed by the Hyattsville-based construction company W.M. Schlosser, according to state campaign finance records. Each contributed $500 to her campaign.
Her next biggest contribution came from Jennifer Martin, who donated $300. Martin is the former president of the MCEA.
Other notable donors include state Del. Aaron Kaufman (D-Dist. 18), who donated $150 and state Del. Natalie Ziegler (D- Dist. 9A), who donated $100. Stein also donated $250 to Zimmerman’s campaign.
Zimmerman also received 17 donations from people who listed their employer as MCPS, excluding Stein and Martin, who has retired.
Zimmerman also contributed $250 to her own campaign.
Brenda Diaz
Diaz received $15,022 in campaign contributions this year — $10,493 more than Zimmerman received.
Her biggest donor was Leigh Henry, who donated $2,500. Henry is a co-managing member of real estate development firm HIP Projects in Gaithersburg and is also a board member of the Montgomery County Taxpayers League.
The second biggest donor to Diaz’s campaign was Friends of Bethany Mandel, the campaign fundraising arm for Bethany Mandel, a conservative commentator and District 4 school board candidate who ran unsuccessfully in the May primary. The group donated $1,890 to Diaz’s campaign.
Diaz’s third biggest donor was Cristena Bach Yeutter, the wife of Clayton Yeutter, the U.S. secretary of agriculture under President George H.W. Bush. Cristena Bach Yeutter donated $1,000 to Diaz.
Other notable contributions include $500 from the Upper Montgomery Republican Women’s Club and $300 from the Chevy Chase Women’s Republican Club.
The political action committee of the Republicans of Legislative District 15 donated $250. Diaz also pulled in donations from local Montgomery County Republican Party (MCGOP) leaders, including President Dennis Melby. Melby donated $95 to Diaz’s campaign.
District 4
Shebra Evans
Evans pulled in $18,480 in campaign contributions this year. Her biggest donor was SEIU Local 500’s political action committee, which donated $6,000.
Evans’s notable donors include fellow school board member Brenda Wolf, who donated $250, and former MCPS acting chief of staff and school board member Michael Durso, who also donated $250.
Several campaign committees for current and former elected officials also donated funds. This includes committees for state Sen. Nancy King (D-Dist. 39), which donated $1,000, and for state Del. Jheanelle Wilkins (D-Dist. 20), which donated $500.
State Del. Anne Kaiser (D-Dist. 14) also donated $150 to Evans and Catherine Leggett donated $300. A group called Friends of Judy Docca, named after the former school board member, also donated $405.
Laura Stewart
Stewart brought in the most contributions of the six candidates with $31,858 in donations this year.
The International Association of Fire Fighters, the labor union for firefighters in the U.S., donated the most at $6,000. Stewart’s next highest donation came from the MSEA, which contributed $4,000.
The Baltimore Washington Construction and Public Employees Laborers political action committee and Katya Marin, a member of the Western Montgomery County Citizens Advisory Board, each donated $1,000.
Other notable donors include Stein, who donated $200, and Silver Spring resident Jill Ortman-Fouse, a former school board member, who donated $100. Max Socol, director of campaigns for Progressive Maryland and a former Democratic candidate for the state Senate, individually donated $500 to Stewart’s campaign.
Stewart also donated $100 to her campaign.
