District 3

Julie Yang

Julie Yang’s passion for ensuring that all students - and especially special populations - get access to the resources they need to succeed stems from her own elementary school experiences in China.

Born in Wuhan, China, she found herself on a predestined educational path to a career in the city’s meat factory. That trajectory was changed by an elementary school teacher who, refusing to accept that her students could not do better, gave up her own time before and after school to give them extra coaching, support and instructional time they needed. While many of the young second-grade students did not appreciate the extra work at the time, Ms. Yang now credits that teacher with helping her and nine other students climb out of that educational tier by the end of the school year. She went on to become an educator herself - moving to the US for graduate school and then serving more than 20 years as a classroom teacher, school instructional data analyst, and college and career counselor.

Ms. Yang has served as a PTA leader, co-chair of the Asian Pacific American Student Achievement Action Group, and is currently a member of the Board of Education’s Committee on Special Populations, the Board of Education’s Communication and Stakeholder Engagement Committee, the Board of Education's Fiscal Managerment Committee, and serves as the Board of Education’s representative to the Maryland Association of Boards of Education’s Nominating Committee and MABE Awards Committee.

She was elected to her first four-year term on the Board of Education on November 8, 2022.