Schools are still feeling the pandemic’s calamitous effects. Learning loss, teacher and staff shortages, behavioral problems, and school safety are just a few of the challenges. The people serving on school boards are more important than ever, and voters in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties will decide in the Nov. 8 elections who will do so in Maryland’s two most populous school districts.

In Baltimore, voters are being asked to choose whether they are “for” or “against” 11 potential charter amendments. Many are fairly routine administrative matters, such as authorizing bonds so that the city can borrow money for certain projects, and we regularly support such ballot questions. But several stand out as worthy of analysis, either for their content or their confusing nature.

Last month, a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge deemed that Adnan Syed’s murder conviction was illegitimate, citing unreliable evidence and alternate suspects in the 1999 death of his high school girlfriend. And last week, Baltimore prosecutors dropped all charges against him. After 23 years, Syed is a free man. There’s no doubt that the “Serial” podcast, which examined his case in depth and cast doubt on Syed’s guilt, was partly responsible for the overturning of his conviction, if only in the fact that it brought the case so much attention.

With my best friend riding shotgun and my two dogs in the back seat of my Buick Encore, I made the road trip from D.C. to Chicago last month for the ordination and consecration of Paula E. Clark, the first female bishop, and first Black bishop, of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago. She’s also my mom. I’m incredibly proud of her, but sometimes it amazes me we’re still celebrating women’s firsts.

Howard County voters face an enviable circumstance in choosing between two well-qualified candidates for county executive. The incumbent, Calvin B. Ball III, a Democrat and the first African American individual elected to the post, has an inclusive vision that speaks to the heart of the county’s ethos. The challenger, Allan H. Kittleman, a moderate Republican who held the office before Ball’s election four years ago, has proven himself a dedicated public servant. Each is more than capable of leading Maryland’s most prosperous subdivision.

In her now celebrated exchange with Alabama’s Solicitor General, our newest Supreme Court Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, eviscerated his argument that our Constitution is and should be “colorblind.” Rather, she declared, the intent of those who framed 14th and 15th amendments was to be “color conscious” in safeguarding the civil liberties of the 4 million enslaved Black people freed by the Civil War.

On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency caved to Chesapeake Bay-state governors and agricultural interests by failing to enforce the Clean Water Act or impose sanctions on recalcitrant states for violating mandates to reduce bay pollutants. Instead, the annual meeting of the Chesapeake Executive Council with the EPA administrator and bay-state governors turned into a self-congratulatory session where for the third time it was acknowledged that bay states will miss a vital cleanup deadline. The required pollution reductions were set in 2010 when the EPA gave states 15 years to comply. All speakers acknowledged that these reductions would not be met by 2025. Critical bay-choking nutrient reduction would be missed by wide margins — only 42 percent of nitrogen and 64 percent of phosphorus.