Is the State Trying to Eliminate the Powers of Local Elected Officials? It Seems So.
Baltimore County School Board Member Maggie Domanowski Is Vindicated After Censure Threat Overturned
SOMERSET COUNTY
If you conduct a search to see how many local Maryland school superintendents have been fired by their elected boards and then were reinstated in Maryland history, you will get this answer:
This case appears to be unusual and possibly unprecedented, as there is no clear record of other local superintendents in Maryland being fired and then reinstated by the State. Personnel matters like these are often confidential, and reinstatements by the State Board are rare and typically involve legal or procedural disputes.
The one exception? Ava-Tasker Mitchell of Somerset County. The county is currently in a legal battle with the State of Maryland over her firing and then reinstatement, with the Maryland State Superintendent of Schools, Carey Wright, stepping in to not only issue a “stay” on her firing, but twisting the arms of legislators to change the law in the “middle of the night” so that “stay” could be for an unlimited amount of time. Wright, who previously had the legal ability to stay the firing for 60 days now could stay it for 180 days, the length of a school year.
This case, unusual as it is, is starting to show a trend in Maryland education circles. As more conservatives get elected to school boards, the state is starting to develop a “protected class” of school employees who are not, by law, members of the teacher’s unions. That class? Local superintendents.
Typically, superintendents serve at the “pleasure of the school board.”
A county board may dismiss a superintendent (or other certificated personnel) for specific causes:
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Immorality
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Misconduct in office (e.g., failure to report child abuse)
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Insubordination
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Incompetency
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Willful neglect of duty These must be substantiated and documented
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