Virginia Attorney General Investigating One Incident at One School. [This would NEVER happen in Maryland.]

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares announces an investigation into TJ High School due to a delay in telling students that they had been recognized by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. @WTOP pic.twitter.com/bfJ7AYT3sn

— Nick Iannelli (@NickWTOP) January 4, 2023

URGENT to AG Brian Frosh: Can the Montgomery County Council change the statutory term for Planning Board appointments so that they are only temporary appointments?

From: Parents Coalition

Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2022 12:20 PM
To: OAG <OAG@oag.state.md.us>
Cc: eric.luedtke@house.state.md.us <eric.luedtke@house.state.md.us>; anne.kaiser@house.state.md.us <anne.kaiser@house.state.md.us>; craig.zucker@senate.state.md.us <craig.zucker@senate.state.md.us>; pam.queen@house.state.md.us <pam.queen@house.state.md.us>; brian.feldman@senate.state.md.us <brian.feldman@senate.state.md.us>; lily.qi@house.state.md.us <lily.qi@house.state.md.us>; susan.lee@senate.state.md.us <susan.lee@senate.state.md.us>; ariana.kelly@house.state.md.us <ariana.kelly@house.state.md.us>; marc.korman@house.state.md.us <marc.korman@house.state.md.us>; sara.love@house.state.md.us <sara.love@house.state.md.us>; cheryl.kagan@senate.state.md.us <cheryl.kagan@senate.state.md.us>; kumar.barve@house.state.md.us <kumar.barve@house.state.md.us>; jim.gilchrist@house.state.md.us <jim.gilchrist@house.state.md.us>; julie.palakovichcarr@house.state.md.us <julie.palakovichcarr@house.state.md.us>; jeff.waldstreicher@senate.state.md.us <jeff.waldstreicher@senate.state.md.us>; alfred.carr@house.state.md.us <alfred.carr@house.state.md.us>; emily.shetty@house.state.md.us <emily.shetty@house.state.md.us>; jared.solomon@house.state.md.us <jared.solomon@house.state.md.us>; ben.kramer@senate.state.md.us <ben.kramer@senate.state.md.us>; charlotte.crutchfield@house.state.md.us <charlotte.crutchfield@house.state.md.us>; bonnie.cullison@house.state.md.us <bonnie.cullison@house.state.md.us>; vaughn.stewart@house.state.md.us <vaughn.stewart@house.state.md.us>; will.smith@senate.state.md.us <will.smith@senate.state.md.us>; lorig.charkoudian@house.state.md.us <lorig.charkoudian@house.state.md.us>; david.moon@house.state.md.us <david.moon@house.state.md.us>; jheanelle.wilkins@house.state.md.us <jheanelle.wilkins@house.state.md.us>; Nancy.King@senate.state.md.us <Nancy.King@senate.state.md.us>; gabriel.acevero@house.state.md.us <gabriel.acevero@house.state.md.us>; lesley.lopez@house.state.md.us <lesley.lopez@house.state.md.us>; kirill.reznik@house.state.md.us <kirill.reznik@house.state.md.us>; david.fraser.hidalgo@house.state.md.us <david.fraser.hidalgo@house.state.md.us>; Linda.Foley@house.state.md.us <Linda.Foley@house.state.md.us>

Subject: URGENT to AG Brian Frosh: Can the Montgomery County Council change the statutory term for Planning Board appointments so that they are only temporary appointments?

 

Dear Attorney General Frosh,

The Montgomery County Council has announced that this week they will appoint temporary acting commissioners and a temporary acting chairperson to the Montgomery County Planning Board.  

The Montgomery County Council has also announced that they will not be following the statutory process for filling unexpired terms on the Montgomery County Planning Board.

Questions to be answered by the Maryland Attorney General's office:

1. Can the Montgomery County Council change the statutory term for Planning Board appointments so that they are only temporary appointments?
2. 
   
3. Can the Montgomery County Council change the statutory appointment process for Planning Board appointments and eliminate the statutory 3-week period between making the list of applicants public and the appointment date?
4. 
   

In April of 2021, your office issued an opinion as to whether a state superintendent of schools appointed to a vacancy in the middle of a term serves for the remainder of the unexpired term. In 106 Opinions of the Attorney General 67 (2021), your office concluded that the Maryland State Board of Education could not offer a State Superintendent a term different than that provided for in the statute.  

In the appointment of Montgomery County Planning Board commissioners and the chairperson, the statute does expressly state that an individual appointed to a vacancy serves for the unexpired term, the statute does provide for staggered terms, and the statute does refer to positions by using the word term.  In light of your offices' Opinion in 16 OAG 67, it would appear that the Montgomery County Council must also follow the applicable statutes in appointing Commissioners and a Chairperson to the Montgomery County Planning Board.  

The Maryland statute on filling unexpired terms on the Montgomery County Planning Board does not provide for temporary appointments.  There does not appear to be any language in the statute that would support the appointment of temporary acting Planning Board Commissioners or a temporary acting Chairperson.  

The statute does not offer any alternative to the appointment process and is clear that the public is to have access to the list of applicants for these positions for 3 weeks prior to appointment. 

The appointment of Montgomery County Planning Board Commissioners and its Chairperson are of great public importance as the Montgomery County Planning Board actions impact virtually every land use decision in the County.

Thank you for your immediate review of these questions. 

We look forward to your prompt response as time is of the essence in this matter.  

Janis Zink Sartucci

Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, MD

Formed in 2002, the Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland seeks to achieve the goals of coherent, content-rich curriculum standards; high expectations combined with timely remediation and acceleration; a wider range of educational options for parents and children; greater transparency and accountability; and meaningful community input.

Attachment - Montgomery County Council 2022 FAQs: Appointment of New Planning Board Members

Senator Frosh "forgot" to live stream Senate hearing

A voting session on the bill establishing liability in cases of death and injury related to dog bites (subscriber access) was not live-streamed over the internet despite a rule change that would have allowed online access.
The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee met Feb. 20, 2014 to vote on a bill sponsored by Sen. Brian E. Frosh, D-Montgomery and chairman of the committee...
...Frosh, when asked about the lack of an live-stream of the debate (which creates an archived record the public can listen to on demand) he responded:
“I forgot,” Frosh said, referring to turning on the microphones when the bill came up for debate...
http://thedailyrecord.com/2014/02/24/no-one-asked/

Common Core Breaks the Rules

Ever hear about a deal that is too good to be true?

In MoCo, our BOE likes these deals.  Votes in closed session, no accountability, and no oversight. 

I wish I never left NY.   

Is a deal that doesn't pass in NY good for our kids in MCPS?  Probably not, but who is going to say no?

From today's Washington Post:

Pearson Charitable Foundation, the nonprofit arm of educational publishing giant Pearson Inc., has agreed to pay a $7.7 million settlement to New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman after he determined that the foundation had created Common Core products to generate “tens of millions of dollars” for its corporate sister.“The law on this is clear: non-profit foundations cannot misuse charitable assets to benefit their affiliated for-profit corporations,” Schneiderman said in a statement Thursday.

Read more here.

An Open Letter to Dr. Starr on Public Information in Maryland

Dear Dr. Starr:

Welcome to Maryland.  It's been a little over two weeks since you have taken over the helm at Montgomery County Public Schools,  and I hope you are adjusting well to the Washington heat and humidity.   The good folks at Carver are probably showing you around town, and with that really super transition team, you should be up to speed in no time.

I don't know how things worked in Connecticut, or other places where you've been, but I have a feeling that you just may need some better advice on what the taxpayers expect.  Given that your staff and legal counsel have given advice on the Open Meetings Law that is just plain wrong, as evidenced by two separate opinions from the Open Meetings Compliance Board, I would hate for you to find yourself in similar difficulties with other Maryland law.  So, here is my introduction to the Maryland Public Information Act.

As you know, information in the files of the government belongs to the citizens.  This is basic, and goes back to the common law.  In Maryland, we have codifed this rule into a statute called the "Maryland Public Information Act."   You can find this law at Title 10, Subtitle 6, Part III of the State Government Article (“SG”);  our friendly attorney general, Mr. Gansler, has issued a manual with everything you need to know.

In Maryland, we have a right to access government records without unnecessary cost or delay.  You have the lucky honor as the custodian of the records to provide access to the records unless the records are within one of the exemptions listed in the statute.  Things like personnel records, student records,  and certain other records that the state has determined should not be released.  However, the presumption is on disclosure, and you need to be careful when you withhold records that the records really are exempt.  Also - if some parts of a record or document can be withheld from release, that doesn't give you permission to withhold the entire document.  You are required to release the portion of the document that is disclosable, and limit the amount of material withheld from public view.  Take a look at Mr. Gansler's manual for a much more detailed description of what should and should not be disclosed. And then there is the matter of time.  The MPIA requires that records responsive to requests should be produced immediately after receipt of a written request.  See SG §10-614(b)(2).  Yes, the manual does acknowledge that you can have a period not to exceed 30 days, but only if you need that time to locate the documents.  The Manual states:

A custodian should not wait the full 30 days to allow or deny access to a record if that amount of time is not needed to respond. If access is to be granted, the record should be produced for inspection and copying promptly after the written request is evaluated.

See the Manual, at page 53.  Recall, our prior Superintendent was given an award for being "Tech Savy" and spent a lot of money on technology, so our school system does have the ability to retrieve loads of information very quickly, contrary to what your public information office may tell you.

You can charge certain fees for copying and locating the documents, but again, the Manual cautions that these fees should not be charged to deter the public from requesting documents or copies.  And, folks are entitled to request a waiver of the fees.  You are encouraged to grant the waiver, if the waiver is in the public interest.  According to the Manual:

To determine whether a waiver is in the public interest, the official custodian must consider not only the ability of the applicant to pay, but also other relevant factors. A waiver may be appropriate, for example, when a requester seeks information for a public purpose rather than a narrow personal or commercial interest.

See page 13.

I look forward to working with you during your stay in Maryland.  And remember, we've got a lot of information available at no cost on our state website, so if you do a little bit of reading on your own, you can probably reduce the cost of those high priced legal services that our Board of Education seems to enjoy.

FBI looks at Promethean purchase in San Diego

Tucson, Arizona - Sarasota, Florida - Waterloo, Iowa - San Diego, California...

voiceofsandiego.org/education: Schools' Technology Choice Draws FBI Interest

Posted: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 3:51 pm | Updated: 4:15 pm, Wed Apr 28, 2010.

By EMILY ALPERT

The way in which the San Diego Unified School District chose a specific brand of technological tools has drawn the interest of the FBI, according to a local businessman who sued the school district over it...

...Like the other school systems, San Diego chose to only allow the Promethean brand of whiteboards in its classrooms. That meant that companies vying to install the boards had to purchase and install Promethean, not any other brand on the market. Here and across the country, selecting a specific product has raised questions and stirred up debate about fair competition in awarding work in schools....

...Tucson schools also chose Promethean as their sole whiteboard brand and used a state contract to obtain the boards, something that San Diego did too. The Arizona attorney general found that the Tucson school district violated state laws when it bought boards without approval from the school board and skirted the need to competitively bid for some items...

  Arizona by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

Howard Co. to provide free public education

Schools to eliminate activity fees

Parents had complained of wildly varying charges

Columbia Flyer By Jennifer Broadwater Posted 3/12/09

Howard County school officials have decided to eliminate “activity fees” charged to parents. The fees, used to pay for materials such as craft supplies, calculators, magazine subscriptions and spelling workbooks, previously varied wildly from school to school and had prompted complaints from parents. In addition to eliminating the fees, officials have drawn up school supply “menus” in order to make supply lists at different schools more consistent...

The changes follow a moratorium on activity fees and all other requests to parents for supplies imposed by Superintendent Sydney Cousin last fall.

“We wanted to be sure there was some consistency, and more importantly, we wanted to be sure we weren’t asking for things the school system should be supplying,” Cousin said in October. “Free and public education is what the state says we should be supplying and that’s what we’ll do.”
continues here
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How did Howard County Public Schools look at the exact same laws and the exact same letter from the Maryland Attorney General's office and come up with different conclusions from Superintendent Weast?