By Adam Pagnucco.
With the first of two Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports on MCPS’s sexual harassment scandal released on Friday, let’s discuss what should come next in the second report. Given all the revelations of recent months, the second report may turn out to be longer – and more consequential – than the first.
From the very beginning, this story has been about far more than the actions of former Farquhar Middle School principal Joel Beidleman. The actions of the management chain above him are now in question, with a key question being how far up that chain culpability extends. Let’s review many of the scandal’s key events as reported in local media.
August 11: The original story by the Washington Post was a bombshell. It not only revealed the allegations against Beidleman, it also began the discussion of what MCPS management did about them. Among the main points were that at least 18 complaints had been filed about Beidleman since 2016, “top district officials were aware of Beidleman’s behavior,” MCPS compliance coordinator Khalid Walker had cleared Beidleman of sexual harassment violations after his promotion, and Beidleman’s problematic behavior extended to students as well as employees.
September 14: Law firm Jackson Lewis, which MCPS hired to do a preliminary investigation, reported that “key decision-makers” were aware that Beidleman was under investigation and recommended him for promotion anyway. They waited weeks before telling the school board about his problems.
September 18: The Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) released emails proving that it had complained about Beidleman to MCPS labor relations officials and that they acknowledged receiving the complaint in May 2022. That was more than a year before Beidleman was promoted.
September 28: MCPS Superintendent Monifa McKnight told a county council committee that she was not aware of the allegations against Beidleman at the time that she promoted him.
McKnight to the county council: “Like the members of the Board of Education, I was not aware that there was an internal investigation against Dr. Joel Beidleman at the time of his promotion.”
October 7: The Washington Post reported that Khalid Walker, the MCPS investigator who had cleared Beidleman, had been given a new job with an $11,893 raise. Three hours after the Post inquired, MCPS’s spokesman said that Walker had been moved to another position instead at his current salary.
October 12 and October 17: Montgomery Perspective and MoCo360 reported on a series of senior staff changes at MCPS. Deputy superintendent Patrick Murphy had left MCPS and three other executives were on administrative leave. One of the latter was Beidleman’s predecessor as Farquhar principal and had “handled his principal evaluation.”
October 24: MoCo360 reported that McKnight had gone on medical leave. She was back on the job by November 3.
October 26: Montgomery Perspective broke the news that a former MCPS employee known as “Jane Doe” had filed suit against MCPS and Beidleman three days before for sexual discrimination. Among the plaintiff’s allegations were that MCPS had engaged in a “cover up” of Beidleman’s conduct. The following extended quote from the complaint summarizes the latter allegation.
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On February 3, 2023, Plaintiff filed a Complaint for Discrimination, Harassment and Workplace Bullying against Dr. Beidleman. Khalid Walker, an MCPS investigator, was assigned to investigate the complaint. Almost immediately, Mr. Walker began breaching the confidentiality protocols set forth on Policy ACI and Regulation ACH-RA by informing witnesses and those involved that the Plaintiff was the complaining witness.
This breach by Walker was not an unintentional mistake. It was designed by the Defendant to ostracize the Plaintiff and put additional pressure on her to withdraw her Complaint. During this time, MCPS wanted to promote Dr. Beidleman to Principal of Paint Branch High School.
Instead of performing an objective and good faith investigation, MCPS tampered with the Beidleman investigation. MCPS initially concluded that the Plaintiff’s complaint was meritorious and that Beidleman had harassed and/or intimidated her. That finding was submitted to the MCPS the same day that Beidleman was interviewed for the Paint Branch job. However, MCPS subsequently ordered a change to that conclusion to the report “to reflect that there was not enough evidence to substantiate” the Plaintiff’s claim. MCPS also changed certain dates of the investigation on documents to aid Beidleman. In effect, MCPS chose to cover-up Beidleman’s conduct so they could reward him.
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This story is not just about one abusive principal. It’s about a system that enabled his behavior. At this writing, we still don’t know the extent of what happened. We also don’t know how far up the chain of command this went.
Back in September, the OIG announced that it was conducting two investigations. The first, an examination of Beidleman’s conduct, is now complete and was done quickly. The other was described as “a review of MCPS’s process for receiving and responding to allegations of misconduct against school system employees. Through this review we will assess whether MCPS has effective procedures for the receipt, assignment, investigation, referral, resolution, documentation and retention of allegations of misconduct by its employees.”
Process examinations to determine improvements are a major part of the OIG’s work. Yes, let’s make sure that MCPS has a process to identify other Beidlemans and prevent their promotion. But the above record suggests that other people besides Beidleman deserve to be held accountable for this scandal. So far, they have not been publicly identified, and if they have been disciplined, there is no public record of it.
The OIG should give us a detailed accounting of who did what in the Beidleman investigation and promotion – as far up the management chain as it goes – so MCPS and the school board can hold everyone involved accountable. If the OIG does not, there is a real possibility that Beidleman will be punished but his benefactor(s) will remain in their positions, free to create another scandal in the future.