By Adam Pagnucco.
On August 11, 2023, the Washington Post broke one of the biggest scandals in MCPS history: the fact that Principal Joel Beidleman was promoted despite the fact that he was under investigation for sexual harassment, of which he had been accused many times since 2016. MCPS leaders vowed an aggressive investigation and promised accountability for anyone who engaged in wrongdoing.
In the MCM video below, recorded eleven days after the first Post article was published, Board of Education President Karla Silvestre and Superintendent Monifa McKnight made specific promises to get to the bottom of the scandal, find those who were responsible and hold them accountable. A transcript appears below the video.
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Board of Education President Karla Silvestre
I want to address the difficult topic of the allegations of sexual harassment and bullying at one of our middle schools and the repeated failure of the system to respond to complaints reported. We the board want to assure our staff, students and families and the community that we will determine what happened. And there will be accountability for any failures, either systemic or individual, that are identified.
The board has met with the external investigators and are confident that the team will conduct an independent, unbiased investigation.
First, the team is investigating any potential failures by MCPS in connection with the promotion of Dr. Joel Beidleman to principal of Paint Branch High School. The board expects to receive a report of this first phase of the investigation by September 8th, 2023. The team is also simultaneously conducting a Title IX investigation into any potential Title IX violations led by Joel Beidleman. The findings from that phase of the investigation will take more time due to strict statutory due process requirements pursuant to Title IX.
Superintendent Monifa McKnight
We all take this very seriously. We will take the time to understand exactly what happened, especially as we reflect on the report, you know, it indicated that issues may have stretched back years. It indicated that people may have felt like they had failed leadership.
And also know that our team’s going to be fully responsive and cooperative with the investigators. We want to know: who, what, when and why. And we’re also going to make sure that we’re doing everything to make them have the information, help them have the information that they need to give us those answers. And I want to say that through that process, anyone, anyone who is implicated in wrongdoing will be held accountable. Period.
I’m going to pull every lever, use every tool and exercise every authority that I have as the superintendent if necessary to overhaul any part of our system that requires that.
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Since then, four government reports have been issued.
1. The report to which Silvestre referred was completed by law firm Jackson Lewis in September. A summary and a heavily redacted version of the report were released. The report indicated that unnamed “key decision-makers” knew that Beidleman was under investigation and recommended him for promotion anyway. Additionally, one MCPS employee “altered the [redacted] investigation timeline in violation of MCPS’s Employee Code of Conduct” along with other problems.
2. A report by the county’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) on November 29 found that “Beidleman made repeated comments about the appearance of female subordinates, directed offensive comments and jokes of a sexual nature at subordinates, bullied subordinates, and had a sexual relationship with a subordinate over which he had supervisory responsibility.”
3. A follow-up report by the OIG on January 23 did not examine the specific circumstances of Beidleman’s promotion but it did find sweeping deficiencies in MCPS’s handling of complaints. It also found that MCPS was warned four times about these problems – three times during McKnight’s tenure as interim or fully appointed superintendent.
4. Another report by the OIG on January 8 accused an unnamed MCPS official of providing “evasive answers to direct questions” during an investigation. It’s unclear whether or how this was connected to the Beidleman scandal, but it certainly made a mockery of McKnight’s vow in August that “our team’s going to be fully responsive and cooperative with the investigators.”
And then there are all the allegations in the press and in a lawsuit filed by an MCPS teacher. Many of these allegations are anonymously sourced, although Khalid Walker – the first MCPS official to investigate Beidleman – went on the record with MoCo360 to accuse MCPS of retaliation.
It has now been more than five months since Silvestre and McKnight went on camera to promise accountability. While Beidleman himself is no longer employed by MCPS, we don’t know the circumstances of his departure. And while there has been substantial recent staff turnover, no one has been named as complicit in Beidleman’s promotion despite the findings of the September Jackson Lewis report.
Has anyone been held accountable other than (possibly) Beidleman himself? There is no evidence of this in the official record despite four different government reports and many articles in the press.
Back in August, McKnight said, “We want to know: who, what, when and why.”
When it comes to how the system enabled Beidleman, we still don’t know the answers to those questions. Will we ever know them?
WE DESERVE BETTER THAN THIS.