Carolyn J. B. Howard sponsored a 2011 measure requiring a $47.5 million appropriation for public school construction projects, according to the Maryland General Assembly. Howard, a former Prince George's County principal who spent nearly three decades representing District 24, died on September 19, 2026, at 87.

Her family confirmed her death to NBC4 Washington.

Howard was born in DeLand, Florida, and prepared for a life in education with a bachelor's degree in home economics and education from Florida A&M University and a master's degree in education from Bowie State College. She worked as a Prince George's County Public Schools principal from 1981 to 1988, then supervised its Title I program for 12 years and led its Department of Federal Programs from 2000 to 2005. The Maryland State Archives describes Title I as a program serving schools with high concentrations of poverty.

Her service in the House began on August 2, 1988. After an interval away from the chamber, she returned on March 7, 1991, and remained until January 9, 2019. Most of that career unfolded on the Ways and Means Committee, where she served during two long stretches and chaired the transportation subcommittee from 1997 through 2014.

Colleagues repeatedly entrusted Howard with leadership. She served as deputy majority whip from 1995 to 1999, chaired the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland from 1998 to 2000, led the House Democratic Caucus from 1999 through 2019 and chaired the Prince George's County Delegation from 2003 through 2006. From 2007 until her retirement, she was Deputy Speaker Pro Tem. Those overlapping roles placed her at the intersection of statewide policy, party organization and the county she represented.

The school construction measure became one concrete expression of Howard's two careers. House Bill 1213 increased the sales and use tax on alcoholic beverages from 6 percent to 9 percent and provided a $47.5 million fiscal 2012 appropriation for public school construction projects. The measure became law that May.

Howard also worked on questions that grew more prominent after she first raised them. In 1997, she advanced bills to ease absentee-ballot restrictions and offer voters a mail option, arguing that mailed ballots could increase turnout and lower costs.

Transportation became another sustained assignment. Howard served on Maryland's Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation Funding from 2010 through 2012 while chairing the House transportation subcommittee. As commissioners debated how to pay for roads and transit in 2011, she pressed the urgency of acting in that session because later years would bring different priorities.

Recognition followed both her education work and her legislative service. The Daily Record included her among Maryland's Top 100 Women in 2003. State records also list an honorary doctorate in humanities from Sojourner-Douglass College in 2004 and Consumer Hero honors from the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition in 2013 and 2014. The same records describe lasting ties to Florida A&M alumni leadership, the National Council of Negro Women and professional education associations.

Howard's work remains legible in Prince George's County classrooms and in Maryland law: Title I administration, nearly three decades of House votes, the caucuses she led and school construction money carried by her 2011 bill. Her path from a principal's office to presiding leadership gave the county a representative who understood education both as daily work and as a public budget.