Patricia B. O’Neill was unanimously elected president of the Board of Education for a one-year term, and Sharon W. Cox was unanimously elected vice president of the Board for a one-year term. The election occurred during the Board’s regularly scheduled business meeting on Tuesday, December 10, 2002.

Mrs. O’Neill previously has served as president and vice president of the Board and recently was elected to her second term as a Board member. A long-time leader in the Montgomery County Council of PTAs, she has served as co-PTSA president and for four years as cluster coordinator of the Walt Whitman Cluster. She also was PTSA vice president of Thomas Pyle Middle School and PTA president of Burning Tree Elementary School. She is a representative to the Maryland Association of Boards of Education (MABE) Legislative Committee and is serving for the second year on the MABE Board of Directors.

Mrs. O’Neill is a graduate of Walter Johnson High School and has a degree in social science from Southern Methodist University. She is married and has a daughter who attends Thomas Pyle Middle School and a daughter who is a 1999 graduate of Walt Whitman High School.

Ms. Cox, elected to the Board of Education in 2000, also is chair of the Legislative Committee of the Maryland Association of Boards of Education and liaison to the National School Board Association’s Healthy School Network. She is serving her second year as chair of the Board’s Policy Committee. She worked in MCPS classrooms for several years as a substitute teacher, served two terms as president of the MCCPTA, and participated in other community organizations after leaving the management team of the National Capital Area Blue Cross Plan to raise her family.

Ms. Cox has a degree in Education from Towson State College and has completed courses towards an MBA degree at Loyola College. She is married with three children, all students in or graduates of MCPS.