The Board of Education has not hired an independent, outside investigative firm to investigate the allegations surrounding Farquhar Middle School Principal Joel Beidleman.
Instead, they have retained a firm that has already represented them in litigation involving their prior vaccine mandate. The same lawyers that have now been hired to investigate the Beidleman matter have already sat with Board of Education members in a Closed Session meeting.
Federal litigation in 2021 shows the law firm of Jackson Lewis, PC and the same lawyer Donald English as representing the Board of Education in the vaccine litigation.
The Montgomery County Board of Education's Funding Accountability and Transparency website shows payments to the Jackson Lewis, PC law firm in fiscal years 2022 and 2023 totaling $110,674.
Typical of Montgomery County. A white male supremacy prevails. Forget that parents and teachers are smarter than they are.
ReplyDeleteYou must be referring to Montgomery County, PA.
DeleteThe BOE is all-female except for the student member. The superintendent is an African-American female. Biedelman is African-American as was his direct boss during these allegations was who covered for him, the investigator that said his behavior did not meet the standards of sexual harrassment was an African-American male. At least 5 of his 6 victims are white females. You could argue this system was built by white men, but they are not the bad actors here.
DeleteOstensibly 'the standards' are made up of the same substance as Jim Carrey's mask.
DeleteIs the investigation only Beidleman? What about Wheaton? We had 2 years of chaos. How many times placed on leave w/ acting principals taking over? How many bullying/harassment complaints were filed? We have been told the former/retired principal is coming back to start the year--That's good news. But now does the unprofessional behavior transfer to another school?
ReplyDeleteIt seems rather clear to me that Beidleman was permitted act like a scumbag precisely because he's a person of color. Remember the Anti-Racist audit from last year? Well here's one of the takeaways: "Proactively develop(-ing) new practices and policies that create access, opportunity, and equitable educational,
ReplyDeletesocial-emotional, and health outcomes for students, staff,
and families of color."
Now you won't find smoking gun emails between administrators saying that Beidleman is untouchable and shouldn't be punished due to his race, but Administrators implicitly knew that he couldn't be touched because he's viewed as a presentable, high-achieving POC.
MoCo - You deserve the government/schools that vote for and what you tolerate. So please don't waste time pretending the Administrators are "incompetent" or "asleep at the wheel". This was allowed to happen and the root of it lies in the made-up garbage found here: https://www2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteassets/district/antiracist/action-plan-final.pdf
What happens next in this saga? Well, an "independent investigation" has been commissioned (what a joke). They'll blame this problem on a small group of individuals, vague "systemic failures", and on and on, but you won't hear a word about the truth, which is what I posted above. Wake up, people.
You are wrong. MCPS is a sexual predator friendly employer. The list of sexual predators who have been allowed to sexually abuse children for DECADES has been chronicled on this website. Former MCPS elementary school teacher John Vigna is one recent example. He was reported for lap sitting with little girls for years by adults who witnessed his assaults. MCPS kept Vigna in the classroom and never reported him to CPS, the police and never removed him from access to children allowing dozens more to be victimized.
ReplyDeleteIndeed! The Principal at Northwood HS was not fired after Aaron LaMere had five reprimands from 2008 to 2013 when he abused another ten or so kids. Johnson was not only not fired he got a job with the state of Md and then was sent back to work directly under the acting superintendent of MCPS. Johnson write a reprimand to the teacher in 2008 and knew that he had had a relationship with a student on n off campus for almost a year. Welcome to MCPS folks
DeleteThanks for the response and for not censoring my comment. It's sad that I even had to mention the latter, but the volume of legitimate commentary that gets rejected is truly maddening.
ReplyDeleteI looked through the "sexual abuse" tag and see some articles on sexual abuse, though I don't see droves of examples where that abuse has been reported and ignored, as you seem to imply. Additionally, I don't know the racial breakdown of the perps, both of which would be needed in order to concede to your "You are wrong." comment. Would love to see such documentation, if it's available.
I will acknowledge that perhaps there have been some examples of sex abuse cover-ups in the recent past in MoCo Schools. And that I should have phrased my point more like, "gee, has anyone asked if Beidleman was protected because of his race?"
I say this because, quite frankly, it's laughable to pretend we aren't living in a society in which POC's are protected, and protected at very meaningful costs. We read stories like Giant Foods bleeding $ due to crime which isn't prosecuted, hear the MOCOBOE talk about disparate punishments for POC, and how they want to hire and advance said people, and on and on. So when you read of a murderer that was out on bond despite having a long rap sheet, hear the County Board push for the STEP Act, or you see an example like Beidleman in which his misdeeds went seemingly uninterrupted, it's perfectly reasonable to ask whether race played a factor.
Look again. "Droves" are all documented. Sorry, you don't get to discount the many, many victims of decades of MCPS cover ups.
DeleteWhat you would love to be true is not. If you want to spend the time to read all of the documentation to see that you are wrong, then do it. It's all here in over 10,000 blog posts. But you don't get to pick one case and pretend you are an expert.
The Washington Post has rewritten this blog article. Of course, they failed to credit the Parents' Coalition for the research.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/17/jackson-lewis-mcps-beidleman-investigation/