Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Monday, August 4, 2025
Breaking**Inspector General: "Actions of MCPS senior leaders do not demonstrate either accountability or transparency." Report on MCPS Failure to Background Check Staff/Contractors/Volunteers.
Today, the Montgomery County Office of the Inspector General issued a report entitled, "Review of MCPS Background Screening Office."
The IG's Report details disturbing gaps in the MCPS background checks of staff, contractors and volunteers.
The MCPS Superintendent, Thomas W. Taylor, responded to the Report and criticized the IG's process.
The IG responded to the Superintendent's criticism with a response letter that included the following statements:
...OIG staff met with members of the Superintendent’s leadership team on June 25th and in response to that meeting made corrections to address the concerns raised and provided a revised draft report on July 7th. On July 16th we held another meeting to discuss MCPS’s proposed corrective actions and address any other questions or issues. At no time during or after that meeting did MCPS leadership request additional changes to the report, raise wording discrepancies, or identify any inaccuracies. The Superintendent did not attend either of these meetings, and despite his claims, MCPS leaders did not exhibit or invite an authentic collaboration. In fact, during our last meeting with MCPS leadership, they repeatedly refused to discuss specifics of certain planned actions which would assist the OIG in determining if the proposed steps would address observed deficiencies or offer alternative considerations. It was only in the Superintendent’s July 25th formal response that we learned of the nature and extent of discussions with the State regarding CPS checks...
...Lastly, in contrast to their statements, the actions by MCPS senior leaders do not demonstrate either accountability or transparency. The fact remains that thousands of individuals with unsupervised access to MCPS schools and students have not had a criminal history check in more than five years and thousands more have not completed a CPS check. In the end, only one entity is tasked with and has accepted the responsibility for obtaining these background checks to safeguard employees and students, and that is MCPS.
The full IG Report is reproduced below:
Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland screening of employees by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland on Scribd
Monday, August 14, 2023
McKnight told the audience that counselors from the district’s employee assistance program were in attendance, in case leaders who were friends with Beidleman wanted to talk, attendees said.
...At Monday’s annual administrative and supervisory meeting for about 800 Montgomery supervisors, principals, assistant principals and other leaders, attendees reported that McKnight briefly acknowledged the report in The Post, referring to it as “the elephant in the room.” She said the school system would thoroughly investigate what she called “the allegations,” said four attendees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on internal district matters...
Friday, August 11, 2023
Many MCPS teachers said a principal sexually harassed them. The Board of Education promoted him. @mcps @mocoboe Washington Post Interviewed 45 MCPS Staff Members.
...In the living room, Beidleman told her: “You should just f--- me. Everybody thinks you should,” according to the complaint and two of those present. He turned to his co-workers and asked them: “Don’t you think she should just f--- me?” The teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she fears retaliation from Beidleman and MCPS, quickly left...
...These and other accounts detail a pattern of harassment, threats, retaliations, workplace bullying and other inappropriate conduct spanning at least 12 years across three campuses...
...Until last week, MCPS treated Beidleman as a rising star. Despite six staff members’ reports to MCPS about his conduct in 2023, officials promoted him in June to run Paint Branch High School...
...MCPS, which conducted Beidleman’s regular five-year performance review this year, did not answer any further questions about details in this story, including those asking how it tracks reports about misconduct, who is responsible for collecting them and whether the superintendent is ever informed...
...MCPS’s announcement of Beidleman’s new role was especially surprising to the social studies teacher, whose February sexual harassment, workplace bullying and retaliation complaint alleges Beidleman monitored the camera outside her classroom and grilled her when a male colleague visited...
Saturday, May 13, 2023
Investigative Reporting: Two more alleged Catholic Church abusers revealed: ‘It still haunts me’
...Authorities redacted names from the report of some alleged abusers and church officials under an order from the courts. That’s frustrated survivors and their advocates, who have been working with reporters to identify the individuals.
The Banner used court and property records along with details from the survivor’s interview to identify the alleged abuser as Michael V. Scriber. Two additional people said they were either abused by or suspected Scriber of abuse, according to the report. The attorney general’s office declined to comment for this article.
In addition, The Banner used church directories that list priests’ job assignments to identify the Rev. Joseph G. Fiorentino as redacted priest No. 148 from the report. Fiorentino served for more than a decade at Our Lady of Pompei in Highlandtown in the 1960s and ’70s. His whereabouts today are unknown to the archdiocese and the attorney general’s office. The Banner was also unable to locate him...
Monday, February 13, 2023
Pass the Child Victims Act of 2023 (HB01/SB686)! Maryland: Protect Kids Not Predators
The Maryland Child Victims Act of 2023 will give survivors access to justice and help protect children from sexual abuse by bringing predators to light.
About The Child Victims Act of 2023
Read the bills HB001 and SB686.
Legislative Updates
Email justice4mdsurvivors if you would like to help.
Call To Action
What are The Child Victims of 2023 Act Goals?
Arm trusted adults with information to protect children
Shift the cost of abuse from victims to those who caused the harm
Provide a path to justice for victims ready to come forward
Identify Hidden Predators
Disclose facts of sex abuse epidemic to the public
The 2023 Child Victims Act :
It’s important to understand the key elements of the bill:
- The legislation will eliminate the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse.
- It will repeal the so-called "statute of repose".
- It will create a permanent window for older claims.
- It will allow both public and private entities to be sued.
- It will eliminate the notice of claims deadlines for public entities in child sexual abuse cases.
- The legislation will have some limitations on liability to a single claimant for injuries arising from a single incident or occurrence:
- for retroactive claims (the statute of limitations has already run):
- for private entities:
- $1.5 million cap on non-economic damages
- no cap on economic damages
- for public entities:
- $850,000 cap for damages
- for prospective claims (the statute of limitations has not run):
- for private entities
- no caps on either economic or non-economic claims
- for public entities
- $850,000 cap for damages
Tuesday, December 14, 2021
In FY21 Board of Ed. Dismissed Employee for Misconduct Involving a Student, but Only Asked State to Suspend Teacher. Did Not Ask For Revocation of Teaching License. We call this Passing the Trash.
Why do we call this passing the trash? Because suspensions of teaching licenses do not show up on the (out of date) Maryland State Department of Education website.
They only list revocations and voluntary surrenders of licenses. When the Montgomery County Board of Education only asks for a teachers license to be suspended, that means that those teachers will be able to keep their teaching license and can be hired to work around children elsewhere.
Thursday, December 9, 2021
Our laws cannot allow public schools to shield sexual predators
Shockingly, however, the Biden proposal eliminates some of the most important provisions that we had added, particularly, new questions regarding practices that shield sexual predators from public scrutiny...
...The most concerning issue — and the one that is stripped from the Biden version of our collection — are the new questions we added to get information on “pass the trash” trends in schools. “Pass the trash” is the name for the practice whereby a school employee who engages in sexual misconduct with a student is “passed” from one district to another. In these situations, the teacher accused of sexual misconduct resigns before he or she is terminated, or even prior to the conclusion of an investigation. The sexual predator obtains employment in a new district where they prey on new student-victims. Because the investigation ends with the teacher’s resignation, there is no formal finding of wrongdoing to share with victims or with subsequent employers. In other situations, sexual predators are reassigned to other positions or schools within the same district. It is commonly used by administrators who wish to pacify angry parents by moving an alleged perpetrator to a different location in which families are unaware of his background.
This practice was infamously used recently in Loudoun County, Va., where a student accused of raping a girl in a bathroom was moved to a different school. The superintendent denied that the case had happened and the victim’s father was arrested after trying to disclose the matter at a school board meeting. The case exploded into public attention, possibly influencing Virginia’s recent statewide election when the perpetrator was later arrested for assaulting a different girl at his new school, and evidence emerged suggesting a cover-up by school administrators...
Friday, December 3, 2021
Investigating and disciplining educators appropriately for even small instances of misconduct is key to deterrence, according to Grant. “Because if people know that if they get caught doing even something small, that it’s going to be handled … it creates deterrence.”
After years of sexual misconduct complaints, the school district signed a gag order allowing Matthew Bissell to quietly resign.
Student journalists at NYC’s Townsend Harris HS help boot teacher with multiple allegations of inappropriate sexual interactions with students.
Pupil Power!
Thanks to intrepid student journalists, an English teacher and coach at prestigious Townsend Harris HS in Queens was yanked from the school this week after it came to light that city investigators confirmed he had sex with a former female student.
Joseph Canzoneri, 53, allegedly brought the girl to an apartment where he plied her with wine and marijuana before they had intercourse and oral sex, the Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools found.
The SCI recommended Canzoneri be fired, and the Department of Education tried to do so. But the girl refused to testify at a hearing, so the case was dropped and he was entitled to keep his job under New York tenure protections.
After more than a year in a rubber room, a space where accused teachers await the disciplinary process, he quietly returned to Townsend Harris at the start of the school year in September. The principal kept him out of classrooms in an office.
The scandal remained under wraps until three weeks ago, when someone leaked the case to teen journalists at the school’s student newspaper, The Classic...
https://nypost.com/2021/11/20/townsend-harris-hs-student-journalists-help-boot-sex-teacher/
Tuesday, November 30, 2021
@lizziejohnsonnn · Kirk Shipley, the rowing coach at Walt Whitman High in Bethesda, Md., held onto his job through two investigations into his behavior. Then he was arrested for sexual abuse.
Kirk Shipley, the rowing coach at Walt Whitman High in Bethesda, Md., held onto his job through two investigations into his behavior. Then he was arrested for sexual abuse.
— Lizzie Johnson (@lizziejohnsonnn) November 30, 2021
My latest for the @washingtonpost:
https://t.co/IvUPk73vV8
Tuesday, June 9, 2020
Teachers Unions Call for Police Reform But Refuse to Look in the Mirror
...The AFT and NEA cannot, in good conscience, call for a national database of police officers who have lost their licenses due to misconduct and continue to oppose the very same kind of national database for its own members. They are right to call for the police to clean up its house but it is high time they clean up their own as well...
https://projectforeverfree.org/teachers-unions-call-for-police-reform-but-refuse-to-look-in-the-mirror/
Friday, March 29, 2019
Delegate C.T. Wilson's Bill to Prevent "Passing the Trash" in Schools has been Unanimously Approved in the Maryland House and Senate!
Requiring county boards of education, nonpublic schools, and contracting agencies to require an applicant for a position involving direct contact with minors to submit certain information; requiring a county board, nonpublic school, or contracting agency to review the employment history of a certain applicant before hiring an applicant; requiring the county board, nonpublic school, or contracting agency to check certain eligibility of an applicant for a substitute position involving direct contact with minors; etc.
June 2018: Passing the trash,” enabling teachers who sexually abuse students to pursue another job with no record of their sexual misconduct, is common practice for K–12 school district administrators who fear legal liability and tarnished reputations.
On February 14, 2019, a former MCPS student spoke to the Maryland House Ways and Means Committee in support of House Bill 486. He said, "...MCPS teacher who sexually abused my classmate had worked at a prior school in MCPS and was credibly accused of doing the exact same thing"
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
From 2010: Forgotten Study: Abuse in School 100 Times Worse than by Priests
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Maryland Bill Would Make Background Checks by Public Schools More Rigorous #HB486 #SB541 @paulpinsky @ericluedtke @clarencelammd
Sunday, February 17, 2019
MCPS "teacher who sexually abused my classmate had worked at a prior school in MCPS and was credibly accused of doing the exact same thing" #sexualabuse @MarylandSCCAN @paulpinsky @ericluedtke @clarencelammd #HB486 #SB541
abuse or misconduct will be transferred to THREE different schools before they
are reported to the police.
Fix this system failure and support Senate Bill 541/House Bill 486 in Maryland! The
S.E.S.A.M.E. Bill (Stop School Employee Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and
Exploitation) keeps our children safe and protects the integrity of the education
profession.
Listen to the testimony below as a Montgomery County Public School graduate details to the Maryland House Ways and Means Committee what it was like to be in a MCPS middle school when his teacher was found to have sexually abused a classmate.
The speaker describes the case of Robert Ballmann who taught at Westland Middle School in Bethesda and was then moved to Frost Middle School in Rockville. Mr. Ballmann victimized
students at both schools.
The practice of moving around school staff who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of students is known as "passing the trash."
Public Comment given before Maryland House Ways and Means Committee on February 14, 2019, on House Bill 486.
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Friday, February 15, 2019
Breaking: MD State Superintendent Did Not Revoke MCPS Teacher John Vigna's License as Required in COMAR
Monday, January 28, 2019
Jennifer Alvaro, "THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW"
Child sexual abuse is an issue which affect us all. It is present in every neighborhood, in every socioeconomic group, every racial group, every ethnicity, every religion, from the least to the most highly educated among us. It affects the famous as well as the forgotten. It can happen to infants as well as teens. Experts in the field have found anywhere from 1/3 of girls & 1/6 of boys to 1/10 of all children will experience child sexual abuse sometime before they turn 18.
Most people who abuse are never caught.
90% of victims are abused by someone they know, like, love or live with.
For the times we cannot prevent abuse, we can help to end it sooner.
Please commit to helping end child abuse.
The first step is by raising awareness and becoming educated about the issue.
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Report: Chicago Public Schools 'failed to recognize' extent of systemwide sexual abuse problem
