Complaints alleging the Howard County school system's lack of openness and responsiveness to parents and educators

Complaints alleging the Howard County school system's lack of openness and responsiveness to parents and educators dominated an education-focused town hall meeting hosted by elected officials on Tuesday night.

"A lack of transparency, principals being lap dogs to administration, board members being too cozy with superintendent...it all smells," said parent Sue Faustino. "And that smell is not mold."

Faustino's comments, which referred to school system's highly criticized handling of mold growth in several of the county's schools, were met with a standing ovation from almost half of the audience.

Citing concerns about how central office makes policy decisions, parent David Yungmann said that, in recent years, school system leadership has grown "increasingly arrogant."

"They have been operating with an attitude of, we are very important people doing very important things, and you are common folk and you wouldn't understand," he said. "They want to operate in secrecy. They're paranoid."

Leslie Kornreich, who has a son with autism at Howard High School, said, "Despite the tireless work of educators, we are going backwards in terms of class sizes, and transparency, accountability."

She pointed out Superintendent Renee Foose's suspension in 2014 of the Operating Budget Review Committee, "the only opportunity for the public to have input in the operating budget."

"There is no oversight over the way that the Howard County Public School System spends money," she said. "We have a long way to go before the school system is world-class."

Several parents said that the school system's lack of accountability is reinforced by the inability of educators to voice their opinions for fear of losing their jobs...

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/howard/columbia/ph-ho-cf-education-town-hall-1210-20151207-11-story.html