By Adam Pagnucco.
In Part One, we transcribed an exchange between Council Member Kate Stewart and Board of Education President Karla Silvestre about accountability for MCPS administrators who were involved with the promotion of former Principal Joel Beidleman. Let’s move on to two more issues.
MCPS has minimal investigative staff.
Council Member Kristin Mink uncovered this in her questioning of Acting Compliance and Investigations Director Stacey Ormsby.
Council Member Kristin Mink
What is the current staffing of DCI? [Note from Pagnucco: DCI is MCPS’s Department of Compliance and Investigations.]
Acting Director Stacey Ormsby
Currently, there are twelve staff members for 25,000 employees and 160,000 students. We have four experienced coordinators, four experienced investigators, three administrative secretaries and one acting director to service this entire district.
Mink
Are those all full-time positions?
Ormsby
No. There are three temporary part-time, one is a coordinator, two are temporary investigators. Actually four and one is a temporary administrator.
Mink
So we have two full-time investigators right now.
Ormsby
For the entire district.
The council was upset about getting a less redacted version of the Jackson Lewis report just an hour before this joint committee meeting.
If there is one thing that council members hate, it’s getting materials relevant for one of their meetings at the last minute. They believe such practices are meant to undermine their effectiveness in discussing an issue and that is guaranteed to antagonize them. This theme came up frequently in this meeting. Council Member Kate Stewart’s opening remarks included an observation that the entire council had been requesting a less redacted report for months. Several others repeated this point but no one did it more aggressively than Council Member Andrew Friedson. Let’s review what he had to say.
Council Member Andrew Friedson
I just want to note regarding the release of the unredacted Jackson Lewis report, my recent letter that was referenced was just the latest in months and months of repeated calls by every single person here, including virtually every single person here on this exact dais, starting in September before that report even came out. So to suggest that there wasn’t enough time this week because a lot was going on is disingenuous and is deeply unfortunate. So I just want to note that, I don’t need a response.
But just know that if we are going to rebuild trust, the focus can’t be on using reasons why things can’t be released. It should be on focusing on why they can be released. You can get a lawyer to tell you whatever you want the lawyer to tell you based on a law that could provide a reason not to share information. The question is – what is the culture and the commitment to transparency. And whether or not there is an argument to make that you can share information. That’s what we want to change.
And it shouldn’t take us demanding something to get it. Just like you don’t feel like the MCPS leadership should require you to demand a report as a board of education, we shouldn’t have to demand things be released that the public can understand what is going on in the school system in order to get things to happen. And it shouldn’t take months for it to happen either.
Note from Pagnucco: More to come in Part Three.