Massie Withdraws As School Candidate
Montgomery Board Searching Again
By Manuel Perez-Rivas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 6, 1999; Page B01
Elfreda W. Massie bowed out yesterday as Montgomery County's leading
candidate for school superintendent, just two days after revelations of
her personal bankruptcy filings stunned school board members and threw
her candidacy into a tailspin.
Massie, currently the number two school administrator in Baltimore
County, was nominated Friday to succeed Montgomery Superintendent Paul
L. Vance, whose term ends June 30. She was widely praised over the
weekend as a well-qualified and enthusiastic educator who would ably
lead Montgomery's school system, with its $1 billion budget, into the
next century.
Civic, government and educational leaders anticipated meeting Massie in
Rockville this week to learn about her educational vision.
But those meetings were canceled. Instead, Massie came to Montgomery to
attend a private, late-night meeting Tuesday with the school board at
the home of board President Reginald M. Felton (Northeastern County).
During the meeting, Massie discussed the circumstances of her and her
husband's two bankruptcy filings -- the most recent one last June -- and
attempted to explain why she had not warned school board members before
they endorsed her. It was not enough, however, to save her candidacy...
...Felton said the board had directed the firm conducting the search,
Illinois-based Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, to find new
candidates for consideration and to "strengthen the background and
financial review of potential candidates."
Despite mounting criticism over the secrecy with which the board has
conducted the search to date, Felton reaffirmed that members remain
"committed to the search process underway at this time as the best
method of identifying and selecting candidates for consideration as
superintendent."
The board had been criticized by many in Montgomery's active educational
circles for not giving the community a larger role in reviewing
candidates, even before the revelations of Massie's personal financial
problems derailed the process this week. Some said the board's stance
was especially disheartening considering its stated support for
collaborative decision-making...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/june99/massie6.htm
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