Beidleman Coat Tax Payers More than $2 Million

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the reason we gave her millions of our tax dollars regardless of corruption was for her to f off and go have fun retiring on our hard earned money. Why cant hiring personell admit this is a ridiculously moronic and hazardous decision? I hope someone is fired for this but my intuition says this is more reflective of the degraded standards and inaccountibility to the people who fund thwir bloated salaries.

Meanwhile we had schools without copy paper or toilet paper. Wish we did have to give Monifa McKnight a payout but I guess the increased cost of lawyers would have made up the difference. As a future employer, UMD had to know she was trouble.

She is trouble with connections at the state level to get that UMD job, about which the dean of the College of Education is well aware. McKnight has a thinly conceived job description at UMD, and she won't be in charge of supervising people or programs. While she is probably making decent money, she can't easily destroy lives at UMD. If she is smart, she will keep her head down and just draw that paycheck for however long that fellowship carries her.

She was a fine super. She took a bullet for the BoE, but blaming her for the failures of her predecessors hardly seems fair.

What McKnight did was lie to the BOE about the whole Beidleman mess. Once she lied to the board, and those members found out about her lies through the investigations, that was it. She was shown the exit door, despite a few personal friends on the board pushing for support.

The BOE only let her go after public outrage. Otherwise they didn't care.

They scapegoated her to cover their failings.

The BoE's primary failing was giving her the job to begin with, when she wasn't ready. From Day 1, she demonstrated that she took the job too soon and didn't have the requisite experience or judgement to carry the district forward. It is always hard to "come up" from inside, given various histories and loyalties and back-scratching, but Dr. McKnight was particularly unsuited to be elevated because she had more to hide, and was less secure in her role.

That's why you saw her immediately bring in a bunch of cronies to scaffold her. That a move made out of weakness, not strength.

I did get the impression that a few people weren't happy about having an AA woman in charge.

Source for this? I work for MCPS and I never heard or saw anything regarding her race being a factor from anyone. Thousands of teachers and administrators together voted no confidence because we believed she was not capable, didn’t communicate well with anyone, and implemented polices and programs without proper vetting.

It was perfectly clear just from reading the complaints on this board.

I will admit that the comments that used her first name were racialized but the actual substance of the complaints about Dr. McKnight were not. She was a weak leader who rewarded loyalty over competence, which came back to bite her in the a** when the Biedelman stuff hit the Washington Post. Her office had the chance to handle those investigations correctly, but chose to put the investigator on leave rather than actually clean house.

For anyone who has been in a toxic workplace with an insecure leader, it was clear what was happening inside the CO. A culture of cover-ups and CYA, indecipherable memos full of jargon, and a pass-the-buck failure to take responsibility.

I think Felder did a good job cleaning up that mess, and hope that Taylor can pick up where Felder left off.

Exactly the countless posts referring to her as "Monifa" were offensive and clearly racial. This started on day one, and these same posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did. Well, something finally stuck and they got rid of her.

These two things can both be true, and in this case, are:
-Some posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did
-She made many poor decisions, did not communicate well, and did not take responsibility

Exactly. Both things can be true!

Just because both can be true doesn't make it so. All I know is people calling her her "Monifa" started complaining on day one and that made it seem racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the reason we gave her millions of our tax dollars regardless of corruption was for her to f off and go have fun retiring on our hard earned money. Why cant hiring personell admit this is a ridiculously moronic and hazardous decision? I hope someone is fired for this but my intuition says this is more reflective of the degraded standards and inaccountibility to the people who fund thwir bloated salaries.

Meanwhile we had schools without copy paper or toilet paper. Wish we did have to give Monifa McKnight a payout but I guess the increased cost of lawyers would have made up the difference. As a future employer, UMD had to know she was trouble.

She is trouble with connections at the state level to get that UMD job, about which the dean of the College of Education is well aware. McKnight has a thinly conceived job description at UMD, and she won't be in charge of supervising people or programs. While she is probably making decent money, she can't easily destroy lives at UMD. If she is smart, she will keep her head down and just draw that paycheck for however long that fellowship carries her.

She was a fine super. She took a bullet for the BoE, but blaming her for the failures of her predecessors hardly seems fair.

What McKnight did was lie to the BOE about the whole Beidleman mess. Once she lied to the board, and those members found out about her lies through the investigations, that was it. She was shown the exit door, despite a few personal friends on the board pushing for support.

The BOE only let her go after public outrage. Otherwise they didn't care.

They scapegoated her to cover their failings.

The BoE's primary failing was giving her the job to begin with, when she wasn't ready. From Day 1, she demonstrated that she took the job too soon and didn't have the requisite experience or judgement to carry the district forward. It is always hard to "come up" from inside, given various histories and loyalties and back-scratching, but Dr. McKnight was particularly unsuited to be elevated because she had more to hide, and was less secure in her role.

That's why you saw her immediately bring in a bunch of cronies to scaffold her. That a move made out of weakness, not strength.

I did get the impression that a few people weren't happy about having an AA woman in charge.

Source for this? I work for MCPS and I never heard or saw anything regarding her race being a factor from anyone. Thousands of teachers and administrators together voted no confidence because we believed she was not capable, didn’t communicate well with anyone, and implemented polices and programs without proper vetting.

It was perfectly clear just from reading the complaints on this board.

I will admit that the comments that used her first name were racialized but the actual substance of the complaints about Dr. McKnight were not. She was a weak leader who rewarded loyalty over competence, which came back to bite her in the a** when the Biedelman stuff hit the Washington Post. Her office had the chance to handle those investigations correctly, but chose to put the investigator on leave rather than actually clean house.

For anyone who has been in a toxic workplace with an insecure leader, it was clear what was happening inside the CO. A culture of cover-ups and CYA, indecipherable memos full of jargon, and a pass-the-buck failure to take responsibility.

I think Felder did a good job cleaning up that mess, and hope that Taylor can pick up where Felder left off.

Exactly the countless posts referring to her as "Monifa" were offensive and clearly racial. This started on day one, and these same posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did. Well, something finally stuck and they got rid of her.

These two things can both be true, and in this case, are:
-Some posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did
-She made many poor decisions, did not communicate well, and did not take responsibility

Exactly. Both things can be true!

Just because both can be true doesn't make it so. All I know is people calling her her "Monifa" started complaining on day one and that made it seem racist.

If that's all you know, you missed a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the reason we gave her millions of our tax dollars regardless of corruption was for her to f off and go have fun retiring on our hard earned money. Why cant hiring personell admit this is a ridiculously moronic and hazardous decision? I hope someone is fired for this but my intuition says this is more reflective of the degraded standards and inaccountibility to the people who fund thwir bloated salaries.

Meanwhile we had schools without copy paper or toilet paper. Wish we did have to give Monifa McKnight a payout but I guess the increased cost of lawyers would have made up the difference. As a future employer, UMD had to know she was trouble.

She is trouble with connections at the state level to get that UMD job, about which the dean of the College of Education is well aware. McKnight has a thinly conceived job description at UMD, and she won't be in charge of supervising people or programs. While she is probably making decent money, she can't easily destroy lives at UMD. If she is smart, she will keep her head down and just draw that paycheck for however long that fellowship carries her.

She was a fine super. She took a bullet for the BoE, but blaming her for the failures of her predecessors hardly seems fair.

What McKnight did was lie to the BOE about the whole Beidleman mess. Once she lied to the board, and those members found out about her lies through the investigations, that was it. She was shown the exit door, despite a few personal friends on the board pushing for support.

The BOE only let her go after public outrage. Otherwise they didn't care.

They scapegoated her to cover their failings.

The BoE's primary failing was giving her the job to begin with, when she wasn't ready. From Day 1, she demonstrated that she took the job too soon and didn't have the requisite experience or judgement to carry the district forward. It is always hard to "come up" from inside, given various histories and loyalties and back-scratching, but Dr. McKnight was particularly unsuited to be elevated because she had more to hide, and was less secure in her role.

That's why you saw her immediately bring in a bunch of cronies to scaffold her. That a move made out of weakness, not strength.

I did get the impression that a few people weren't happy about having an AA woman in charge.

Source for this? I work for MCPS and I never heard or saw anything regarding her race being a factor from anyone. Thousands of teachers and administrators together voted no confidence because we believed she was not capable, didn’t communicate well with anyone, and implemented polices and programs without proper vetting.

It was perfectly clear just from reading the complaints on this board.

I will admit that the comments that used her first name were racialized but the actual substance of the complaints about Dr. McKnight were not. She was a weak leader who rewarded loyalty over competence, which came back to bite her in the a** when the Biedelman stuff hit the Washington Post. Her office had the chance to handle those investigations correctly, but chose to put the investigator on leave rather than actually clean house.

For anyone who has been in a toxic workplace with an insecure leader, it was clear what was happening inside the CO. A culture of cover-ups and CYA, indecipherable memos full of jargon, and a pass-the-buck failure to take responsibility.

I think Felder did a good job cleaning up that mess, and hope that Taylor can pick up where Felder left off.

Exactly the countless posts referring to her as "Monifa" were offensive and clearly racial. This started on day one, and these same posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did. Well, something finally stuck and they got rid of her.

Josh?
Call me Josh Starr.
That was racial?

Stop right now. Josh Starr is a White male, which is the most powerful demographic in the United States. Easy enough for him to invite people to use his first name without losing his power. It's not the same for a Black female. It's especially important to note that Dr. McKnight never invited the general public to call her Monifa.

That’s actually false. She actually launched a hashtag on social media using her first name which she called #MomentswithMonifa: https://montgomeryperspective.com/2024/06/17/a-moment-with-monifa/

Monica’s blind defenders seem to be unwilling to look at and acknowledge her actual words and actions and instead insist anyone who says anything critical about her is racist and biased.

That's recent, after the fact. But you knew that.
DP

What difference does it make? Clearly she doesn’t see calling her by her first name as some kind of slight. Unless you think her Dr title is only required so long as she is superintendent. Maybe you should stop taking offense over something that clearly isn’t offensive to the person on whose behalf you’re defending. Dr. McKnight clearly does not mind being called by her first name, Monifa.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the reason we gave her millions of our tax dollars regardless of corruption was for her to f off and go have fun retiring on our hard earned money. Why cant hiring personell admit this is a ridiculously moronic and hazardous decision? I hope someone is fired for this but my intuition says this is more reflective of the degraded standards and inaccountibility to the people who fund thwir bloated salaries.

Meanwhile we had schools without copy paper or toilet paper. Wish we did have to give Monifa McKnight a payout but I guess the increased cost of lawyers would have made up the difference. As a future employer, UMD had to know she was trouble.

She is trouble with connections at the state level to get that UMD job, about which the dean of the College of Education is well aware. McKnight has a thinly conceived job description at UMD, and she won't be in charge of supervising people or programs. While she is probably making decent money, she can't easily destroy lives at UMD. If she is smart, she will keep her head down and just draw that paycheck for however long that fellowship carries her.

She was a fine super. She took a bullet for the BoE, but blaming her for the failures of her predecessors hardly seems fair.

What McKnight did was lie to the BOE about the whole Beidleman mess. Once she lied to the board, and those members found out about her lies through the investigations, that was it. She was shown the exit door, despite a few personal friends on the board pushing for support.

The BOE only let her go after public outrage. Otherwise they didn't care.

They scapegoated her to cover their failings.

The BoE's primary failing was giving her the job to begin with, when she wasn't ready. From Day 1, she demonstrated that she took the job too soon and didn't have the requisite experience or judgement to carry the district forward. It is always hard to "come up" from inside, given various histories and loyalties and back-scratching, but Dr. McKnight was particularly unsuited to be elevated because she had more to hide, and was less secure in her role.

That's why you saw her immediately bring in a bunch of cronies to scaffold her. That a move made out of weakness, not strength.

I did get the impression that a few people weren't happy about having an AA woman in charge.

Source for this? I work for MCPS and I never heard or saw anything regarding her race being a factor from anyone. Thousands of teachers and administrators together voted no confidence because we believed she was not capable, didn’t communicate well with anyone, and implemented polices and programs without proper vetting.

It was perfectly clear just from reading the complaints on this board.

I will admit that the comments that used her first name were racialized but the actual substance of the complaints about Dr. McKnight were not. She was a weak leader who rewarded loyalty over competence, which came back to bite her in the a** when the Biedelman stuff hit the Washington Post. Her office had the chance to handle those investigations correctly, but chose to put the investigator on leave rather than actually clean house.

For anyone who has been in a toxic workplace with an insecure leader, it was clear what was happening inside the CO. A culture of cover-ups and CYA, indecipherable memos full of jargon, and a pass-the-buck failure to take responsibility.

I think Felder did a good job cleaning up that mess, and hope that Taylor can pick up where Felder left off.

Exactly the countless posts referring to her as "Monifa" were offensive and clearly racial. This started on day one, and these same posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did. Well, something finally stuck and they got rid of her.

These two things can both be true, and in this case, are:
-Some posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did
-She made many poor decisions, did not communicate well, and did not take responsibility

Exactly. Both things can be true!

Just because both can be true doesn't make it so. All I know is people calling her her "Monifa" started complaining on day one and that made it seem racist.

If that's all you know, you missed a lot.

Referring to Dr. McKnight by her first name felt disrespectful, especially given her credentials. We should strive to treat each other with a little kindness and respect, not make lame jokes to justify racism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the reason we gave her millions of our tax dollars regardless of corruption was for her to f off and go have fun retiring on our hard earned money. Why cant hiring personell admit this is a ridiculously moronic and hazardous decision? I hope someone is fired for this but my intuition says this is more reflective of the degraded standards and inaccountibility to the people who fund thwir bloated salaries.

Meanwhile we had schools without copy paper or toilet paper. Wish we did have to give Monifa McKnight a payout but I guess the increased cost of lawyers would have made up the difference. As a future employer, UMD had to know she was trouble.

She is trouble with connections at the state level to get that UMD job, about which the dean of the College of Education is well aware. McKnight has a thinly conceived job description at UMD, and she won't be in charge of supervising people or programs. While she is probably making decent money, she can't easily destroy lives at UMD. If she is smart, she will keep her head down and just draw that paycheck for however long that fellowship carries her.

She was a fine super. She took a bullet for the BoE, but blaming her for the failures of her predecessors hardly seems fair.

What McKnight did was lie to the BOE about the whole Beidleman mess. Once she lied to the board, and those members found out about her lies through the investigations, that was it. She was shown the exit door, despite a few personal friends on the board pushing for support.

The BOE only let her go after public outrage. Otherwise they didn't care.

They scapegoated her to cover their failings.

The BoE's primary failing was giving her the job to begin with, when she wasn't ready. From Day 1, she demonstrated that she took the job too soon and didn't have the requisite experience or judgement to carry the district forward. It is always hard to "come up" from inside, given various histories and loyalties and back-scratching, but Dr. McKnight was particularly unsuited to be elevated because she had more to hide, and was less secure in her role.

That's why you saw her immediately bring in a bunch of cronies to scaffold her. That a move made out of weakness, not strength.

I did get the impression that a few people weren't happy about having an AA woman in charge.

Source for this? I work for MCPS and I never heard or saw anything regarding her race being a factor from anyone. Thousands of teachers and administrators together voted no confidence because we believed she was not capable, didn’t communicate well with anyone, and implemented polices and programs without proper vetting.

It was perfectly clear just from reading the complaints on this board.

I will admit that the comments that used her first name were racialized but the actual substance of the complaints about Dr. McKnight were not. She was a weak leader who rewarded loyalty over competence, which came back to bite her in the a** when the Biedelman stuff hit the Washington Post. Her office had the chance to handle those investigations correctly, but chose to put the investigator on leave rather than actually clean house.

For anyone who has been in a toxic workplace with an insecure leader, it was clear what was happening inside the CO. A culture of cover-ups and CYA, indecipherable memos full of jargon, and a pass-the-buck failure to take responsibility.

I think Felder did a good job cleaning up that mess, and hope that Taylor can pick up where Felder left off.

Exactly the countless posts referring to her as "Monifa" were offensive and clearly racial. This started on day one, and these same posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did. Well, something finally stuck and they got rid of her.

These two things can both be true, and in this case, are:
-Some posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did
-She made many poor decisions, did not communicate well, and did not take responsibility

Exactly. Both things can be true!

Just because both can be true doesn't make it so. All I know is people calling her her "Monifa" started complaining on day one and that made it seem racist.

If that's all you know, you missed a lot.

Referring to Dr. McKnight by her first name felt disrespectful, especially given her credentials. We should strive to treat each other with a little kindness and respect, not make lame jokes to justify racism.

Yes...and: even though some people were disrespectful to her, that doesn't excuse her poor record as superintendent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the reason we gave her millions of our tax dollars regardless of corruption was for her to f off and go have fun retiring on our hard earned money. Why cant hiring personell admit this is a ridiculously moronic and hazardous decision? I hope someone is fired for this but my intuition says this is more reflective of the degraded standards and inaccountibility to the people who fund thwir bloated salaries.

Meanwhile we had schools without copy paper or toilet paper. Wish we did have to give Monifa McKnight a payout but I guess the increased cost of lawyers would have made up the difference. As a future employer, UMD had to know she was trouble.

She is trouble with connections at the state level to get that UMD job, about which the dean of the College of Education is well aware. McKnight has a thinly conceived job description at UMD, and she won't be in charge of supervising people or programs. While she is probably making decent money, she can't easily destroy lives at UMD. If she is smart, she will keep her head down and just draw that paycheck for however long that fellowship carries her.

She was a fine super. She took a bullet for the BoE, but blaming her for the failures of her predecessors hardly seems fair.

What McKnight did was lie to the BOE about the whole Beidleman mess. Once she lied to the board, and those members found out about her lies through the investigations, that was it. She was shown the exit door, despite a few personal friends on the board pushing for support.

The BOE only let her go after public outrage. Otherwise they didn't care.

They scapegoated her to cover their failings.

The BoE's primary failing was giving her the job to begin with, when she wasn't ready. From Day 1, she demonstrated that she took the job too soon and didn't have the requisite experience or judgement to carry the district forward. It is always hard to "come up" from inside, given various histories and loyalties and back-scratching, but Dr. McKnight was particularly unsuited to be elevated because she had more to hide, and was less secure in her role.

That's why you saw her immediately bring in a bunch of cronies to scaffold her. That a move made out of weakness, not strength.

I did get the impression that a few people weren't happy about having an AA woman in charge.

Source for this? I work for MCPS and I never heard or saw anything regarding her race being a factor from anyone. Thousands of teachers and administrators together voted no confidence because we believed she was not capable, didn’t communicate well with anyone, and implemented polices and programs without proper vetting.

It was perfectly clear just from reading the complaints on this board.

I will admit that the comments that used her first name were racialized but the actual substance of the complaints about Dr. McKnight were not. She was a weak leader who rewarded loyalty over competence, which came back to bite her in the a** when the Biedelman stuff hit the Washington Post. Her office had the chance to handle those investigations correctly, but chose to put the investigator on leave rather than actually clean house.

For anyone who has been in a toxic workplace with an insecure leader, it was clear what was happening inside the CO. A culture of cover-ups and CYA, indecipherable memos full of jargon, and a pass-the-buck failure to take responsibility.

I think Felder did a good job cleaning up that mess, and hope that Taylor can pick up where Felder left off.

Exactly the countless posts referring to her as "Monifa" were offensive and clearly racial. This started on day one, and these same posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did. Well, something finally stuck and they got rid of her.

These two things can both be true, and in this case, are:
-Some posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did
-She made many poor decisions, did not communicate well, and did not take responsibility

Exactly. Both things can be true!

Just because both can be true doesn't make it so. All I know is people calling her her "Monifa" started complaining on day one and that made it seem racist.

If that's all you know, you missed a lot.

Referring to Dr. McKnight by her first name felt disrespectful, especially given her credentials. We should strive to treat each other with a little kindness and respect, not make lame jokes to justify racism.

Yes...and: even though some people were disrespectful to her, that doesn't excuse her poor record as superintendent.

Yes, it's inexcusable that she inherited the Beidleman problem which had been documented and ignored by the previous supers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the reason we gave her millions of our tax dollars regardless of corruption was for her to f off and go have fun retiring on our hard earned money. Why cant hiring personell admit this is a ridiculously moronic and hazardous decision? I hope someone is fired for this but my intuition says this is more reflective of the degraded standards and inaccountibility to the people who fund thwir bloated salaries.

Meanwhile we had schools without copy paper or toilet paper. Wish we did have to give Monifa McKnight a payout but I guess the increased cost of lawyers would have made up the difference. As a future employer, UMD had to know she was trouble.

She is trouble with connections at the state level to get that UMD job, about which the dean of the College of Education is well aware. McKnight has a thinly conceived job description at UMD, and she won't be in charge of supervising people or programs. While she is probably making decent money, she can't easily destroy lives at UMD. If she is smart, she will keep her head down and just draw that paycheck for however long that fellowship carries her.

She was a fine super. She took a bullet for the BoE, but blaming her for the failures of her predecessors hardly seems fair.

What McKnight did was lie to the BOE about the whole Beidleman mess. Once she lied to the board, and those members found out about her lies through the investigations, that was it. She was shown the exit door, despite a few personal friends on the board pushing for support.

The BOE only let her go after public outrage. Otherwise they didn't care.

They scapegoated her to cover their failings.

The BoE's primary failing was giving her the job to begin with, when she wasn't ready. From Day 1, she demonstrated that she took the job too soon and didn't have the requisite experience or judgement to carry the district forward. It is always hard to "come up" from inside, given various histories and loyalties and back-scratching, but Dr. McKnight was particularly unsuited to be elevated because she had more to hide, and was less secure in her role.

That's why you saw her immediately bring in a bunch of cronies to scaffold her. That a move made out of weakness, not strength.

I did get the impression that a few people weren't happy about having an AA woman in charge.

Source for this? I work for MCPS and I never heard or saw anything regarding her race being a factor from anyone. Thousands of teachers and administrators together voted no confidence because we believed she was not capable, didn’t communicate well with anyone, and implemented polices and programs without proper vetting.

It was perfectly clear just from reading the complaints on this board.

I will admit that the comments that used her first name were racialized but the actual substance of the complaints about Dr. McKnight were not. She was a weak leader who rewarded loyalty over competence, which came back to bite her in the a** when the Biedelman stuff hit the Washington Post. Her office had the chance to handle those investigations correctly, but chose to put the investigator on leave rather than actually clean house.

For anyone who has been in a toxic workplace with an insecure leader, it was clear what was happening inside the CO. A culture of cover-ups and CYA, indecipherable memos full of jargon, and a pass-the-buck failure to take responsibility.

I think Felder did a good job cleaning up that mess, and hope that Taylor can pick up where Felder left off.

Exactly the countless posts referring to her as "Monifa" were offensive and clearly racial. This started on day one, and these same posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did. Well, something finally stuck and they got rid of her.

Josh?
Call me Josh Starr.
That was racial?

Stop right now. Josh Starr is a White male, which is the most powerful demographic in the United States. Easy enough for him to invite people to use his first name without losing his power. It's not the same for a Black female. It's especially important to note that Dr. McKnight never invited the general public to call her Monifa.

That’s actually false. She actually launched a hashtag on social media using her first name which she called #MomentswithMonifa: https://montgomeryperspective.com/2024/06/17/a-moment-with-monifa/

Monica’s blind defenders seem to be unwilling to look at and acknowledge her actual words and actions and instead insist anyone who says anything critical about her is racist and biased.

That's recent, after the fact. But you knew that.
DP

What difference does it make? Clearly she doesn’t see calling her by her first name as some kind of slight. Unless you think her Dr title is only required so long as she is superintendent. Maybe you should stop taking offense over something that clearly isn’t offensive to the person on whose behalf you’re defending. Dr. McKnight clearly does not mind being called by her first name, Monifa.

Did she invite you to call her Monifa when she was superintendent, or immediately thereafter? She did not. So all the time you have been calling her Monifa in your DCUM posts, you were being disrespectful. And if you don't get it, you need to do better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the reason we gave her millions of our tax dollars regardless of corruption was for her to f off and go have fun retiring on our hard earned money. Why cant hiring personell admit this is a ridiculously moronic and hazardous decision? I hope someone is fired for this but my intuition says this is more reflective of the degraded standards and inaccountibility to the people who fund thwir bloated salaries.

Meanwhile we had schools without copy paper or toilet paper. Wish we did have to give Monifa McKnight a payout but I guess the increased cost of lawyers would have made up the difference. As a future employer, UMD had to know she was trouble.

She is trouble with connections at the state level to get that UMD job, about which the dean of the College of Education is well aware. McKnight has a thinly conceived job description at UMD, and she won't be in charge of supervising people or programs. While she is probably making decent money, she can't easily destroy lives at UMD. If she is smart, she will keep her head down and just draw that paycheck for however long that fellowship carries her.

She was a fine super. She took a bullet for the BoE, but blaming her for the failures of her predecessors hardly seems fair.

What McKnight did was lie to the BOE about the whole Beidleman mess. Once she lied to the board, and those members found out about her lies through the investigations, that was it. She was shown the exit door, despite a few personal friends on the board pushing for support.

The BOE only let her go after public outrage. Otherwise they didn't care.

They scapegoated her to cover their failings.

The BoE's primary failing was giving her the job to begin with, when she wasn't ready. From Day 1, she demonstrated that she took the job too soon and didn't have the requisite experience or judgement to carry the district forward. It is always hard to "come up" from inside, given various histories and loyalties and back-scratching, but Dr. McKnight was particularly unsuited to be elevated because she had more to hide, and was less secure in her role.

That's why you saw her immediately bring in a bunch of cronies to scaffold her. That a move made out of weakness, not strength.

I did get the impression that a few people weren't happy about having an AA woman in charge.

Source for this? I work for MCPS and I never heard or saw anything regarding her race being a factor from anyone. Thousands of teachers and administrators together voted no confidence because we believed she was not capable, didn’t communicate well with anyone, and implemented polices and programs without proper vetting.

It was perfectly clear just from reading the complaints on this board.

I will admit that the comments that used her first name were racialized but the actual substance of the complaints about Dr. McKnight were not. She was a weak leader who rewarded loyalty over competence, which came back to bite her in the a** when the Biedelman stuff hit the Washington Post. Her office had the chance to handle those investigations correctly, but chose to put the investigator on leave rather than actually clean house.

For anyone who has been in a toxic workplace with an insecure leader, it was clear what was happening inside the CO. A culture of cover-ups and CYA, indecipherable memos full of jargon, and a pass-the-buck failure to take responsibility.

I think Felder did a good job cleaning up that mess, and hope that Taylor can pick up where Felder left off.

Exactly the countless posts referring to her as "Monifa" were offensive and clearly racial. This started on day one, and these same posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did. Well, something finally stuck and they got rid of her.

These two things can both be true, and in this case, are:
-Some posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did
-She made many poor decisions, did not communicate well, and did not take responsibility

Exactly. Both things can be true!

Just because both can be true doesn't make it so. All I know is people calling her her "Monifa" started complaining on day one and that made it seem racist.

If that's all you know, you missed a lot.

Referring to Dr. McKnight by her first name felt disrespectful, especially given her credentials. We should strive to treat each other with a little kindness and respect, not make lame jokes to justify racism.

Yes...and: even though some people were disrespectful to her, that doesn't excuse her poor record as superintendent.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the reason we gave her millions of our tax dollars regardless of corruption was for her to f off and go have fun retiring on our hard earned money. Why cant hiring personell admit this is a ridiculously moronic and hazardous decision? I hope someone is fired for this but my intuition says this is more reflective of the degraded standards and inaccountibility to the people who fund thwir bloated salaries.

Meanwhile we had schools without copy paper or toilet paper. Wish we did have to give Monifa McKnight a payout but I guess the increased cost of lawyers would have made up the difference. As a future employer, UMD had to know she was trouble.

She is trouble with connections at the state level to get that UMD job, about which the dean of the College of Education is well aware. McKnight has a thinly conceived job description at UMD, and she won't be in charge of supervising people or programs. While she is probably making decent money, she can't easily destroy lives at UMD. If she is smart, she will keep her head down and just draw that paycheck for however long that fellowship carries her.

She was a fine super. She took a bullet for the BoE, but blaming her for the failures of her predecessors hardly seems fair.

What McKnight did was lie to the BOE about the whole Beidleman mess. Once she lied to the board, and those members found out about her lies through the investigations, that was it. She was shown the exit door, despite a few personal friends on the board pushing for support.

The BOE only let her go after public outrage. Otherwise they didn't care.

They scapegoated her to cover their failings.

The BoE's primary failing was giving her the job to begin with, when she wasn't ready. From Day 1, she demonstrated that she took the job too soon and didn't have the requisite experience or judgement to carry the district forward. It is always hard to "come up" from inside, given various histories and loyalties and back-scratching, but Dr. McKnight was particularly unsuited to be elevated because she had more to hide, and was less secure in her role.

That's why you saw her immediately bring in a bunch of cronies to scaffold her. That a move made out of weakness, not strength.

I did get the impression that a few people weren't happy about having an AA woman in charge.

Source for this? I work for MCPS and I never heard or saw anything regarding her race being a factor from anyone. Thousands of teachers and administrators together voted no confidence because we believed she was not capable, didn’t communicate well with anyone, and implemented polices and programs without proper vetting.

It was perfectly clear just from reading the complaints on this board.

I will admit that the comments that used her first name were racialized but the actual substance of the complaints about Dr. McKnight were not. She was a weak leader who rewarded loyalty over competence, which came back to bite her in the a** when the Biedelman stuff hit the Washington Post. Her office had the chance to handle those investigations correctly, but chose to put the investigator on leave rather than actually clean house.

For anyone who has been in a toxic workplace with an insecure leader, it was clear what was happening inside the CO. A culture of cover-ups and CYA, indecipherable memos full of jargon, and a pass-the-buck failure to take responsibility.

I think Felder did a good job cleaning up that mess, and hope that Taylor can pick up where Felder left off.

Exactly the countless posts referring to her as "Monifa" were offensive and clearly racial. This started on day one, and these same posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did. Well, something finally stuck and they got rid of her.

Josh?
Call me Josh Starr.
That was racial?

Stop right now. Josh Starr is a White male, which is the most powerful demographic in the United States. Easy enough for him to invite people to use his first name without losing his power. It's not the same for a Black female. It's especially important to note that Dr. McKnight never invited the general public to call her Monifa.

That’s actually false. She actually launched a hashtag on social media using her first name which she called #MomentswithMonifa: https://montgomeryperspective.com/2024/06/17/a-moment-with-monifa/

Monica’s blind defenders seem to be unwilling to look at and acknowledge her actual words and actions and instead insist anyone who says anything critical about her is racist and biased.

That's recent, after the fact. But you knew that.
DP

What difference does it make? Clearly she doesn’t see calling her by her first name as some kind of slight. Unless you think her Dr title is only required so long as she is superintendent. Maybe you should stop taking offense over something that clearly isn’t offensive to the person on whose behalf you’re defending. Dr. McKnight clearly does not mind being called by her first name, Monifa.

Did she invite you to call her Monifa when she was superintendent, or immediately thereafter? She did not. So all the time you have been calling her Monifa in your DCUM posts, you were being disrespectful. And if you don't get it, you need to do better.

But you can disrespect everyone named Karen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the reason we gave her millions of our tax dollars regardless of corruption was for her to f off and go have fun retiring on our hard earned money. Why cant hiring personell admit this is a ridiculously moronic and hazardous decision? I hope someone is fired for this but my intuition says this is more reflective of the degraded standards and inaccountibility to the people who fund thwir bloated salaries.

Meanwhile we had schools without copy paper or toilet paper. Wish we did have to give Monifa McKnight a payout but I guess the increased cost of lawyers would have made up the difference. As a future employer, UMD had to know she was trouble.

She is trouble with connections at the state level to get that UMD job, about which the dean of the College of Education is well aware. McKnight has a thinly conceived job description at UMD, and she won't be in charge of supervising people or programs. While she is probably making decent money, she can't easily destroy lives at UMD. If she is smart, she will keep her head down and just draw that paycheck for however long that fellowship carries her.

She was a fine super. She took a bullet for the BoE, but blaming her for the failures of her predecessors hardly seems fair.

What McKnight did was lie to the BOE about the whole Beidleman mess. Once she lied to the board, and those members found out about her lies through the investigations, that was it. She was shown the exit door, despite a few personal friends on the board pushing for support.

The BOE only let her go after public outrage. Otherwise they didn't care.

They scapegoated her to cover their failings.

The BoE's primary failing was giving her the job to begin with, when she wasn't ready. From Day 1, she demonstrated that she took the job too soon and didn't have the requisite experience or judgement to carry the district forward. It is always hard to "come up" from inside, given various histories and loyalties and back-scratching, but Dr. McKnight was particularly unsuited to be elevated because she had more to hide, and was less secure in her role.

That's why you saw her immediately bring in a bunch of cronies to scaffold her. That a move made out of weakness, not strength.

I did get the impression that a few people weren't happy about having an AA woman in charge.

Source for this? I work for MCPS and I never heard or saw anything regarding her race being a factor from anyone. Thousands of teachers and administrators together voted no confidence because we believed she was not capable, didn’t communicate well with anyone, and implemented polices and programs without proper vetting.

It was perfectly clear just from reading the complaints on this board.

I will admit that the comments that used her first name were racialized but the actual substance of the complaints about Dr. McKnight were not. She was a weak leader who rewarded loyalty over competence, which came back to bite her in the a** when the Biedelman stuff hit the Washington Post. Her office had the chance to handle those investigations correctly, but chose to put the investigator on leave rather than actually clean house.

For anyone who has been in a toxic workplace with an insecure leader, it was clear what was happening inside the CO. A culture of cover-ups and CYA, indecipherable memos full of jargon, and a pass-the-buck failure to take responsibility.

I think Felder did a good job cleaning up that mess, and hope that Taylor can pick up where Felder left off.

Exactly the countless posts referring to her as "Monifa" were offensive and clearly racial. This started on day one, and these same posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did. Well, something finally stuck and they got rid of her.

These two things can both be true, and in this case, are:
-Some posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did
-She made many poor decisions, did not communicate well, and did not take responsibility

Exactly. Both things can be true!

Just because both can be true doesn't make it so. All I know is people calling her her "Monifa" started complaining on day one and that made it seem racist.

If that's all you know, you missed a lot.

Referring to Dr. McKnight by her first name felt disrespectful, especially given her credentials. We should strive to treat each other with a little kindness and respect, not make lame jokes to justify racism.

Yes...and: even though some people were disrespectful to her, that doesn't excuse her poor record as superintendent.

Yes, it's inexcusable that she inherited the Beidleman problem which had been documented and ignored by the previous supers.

It's not about when the "problem" began. It's how she had the chance to fix things while she was in charge, but instead exacerbated them by promoting him. And as previously mentioned, the Beidelman fiasco was unfortunately not her only failing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the reason we gave her millions of our tax dollars regardless of corruption was for her to f off and go have fun retiring on our hard earned money. Why cant hiring personell admit this is a ridiculously moronic and hazardous decision? I hope someone is fired for this but my intuition says this is more reflective of the degraded standards and inaccountibility to the people who fund thwir bloated salaries.

Meanwhile we had schools without copy paper or toilet paper. Wish we did have to give Monifa McKnight a payout but I guess the increased cost of lawyers would have made up the difference. As a future employer, UMD had to know she was trouble.

She is trouble with connections at the state level to get that UMD job, about which the dean of the College of Education is well aware. McKnight has a thinly conceived job description at UMD, and she won't be in charge of supervising people or programs. While she is probably making decent money, she can't easily destroy lives at UMD. If she is smart, she will keep her head down and just draw that paycheck for however long that fellowship carries her.

She was a fine super. She took a bullet for the BoE, but blaming her for the failures of her predecessors hardly seems fair.

What McKnight did was lie to the BOE about the whole Beidleman mess. Once she lied to the board, and those members found out about her lies through the investigations, that was it. She was shown the exit door, despite a few personal friends on the board pushing for support.

The BOE only let her go after public outrage. Otherwise they didn't care.

They scapegoated her to cover their failings.

The BoE's primary failing was giving her the job to begin with, when she wasn't ready. From Day 1, she demonstrated that she took the job too soon and didn't have the requisite experience or judgement to carry the district forward. It is always hard to "come up" from inside, given various histories and loyalties and back-scratching, but Dr. McKnight was particularly unsuited to be elevated because she had more to hide, and was less secure in her role.

That's why you saw her immediately bring in a bunch of cronies to scaffold her. That a move made out of weakness, not strength.

I did get the impression that a few people weren't happy about having an AA woman in charge.

Source for this? I work for MCPS and I never heard or saw anything regarding her race being a factor from anyone. Thousands of teachers and administrators together voted no confidence because we believed she was not capable, didn’t communicate well with anyone, and implemented polices and programs without proper vetting.

It was perfectly clear just from reading the complaints on this board.

I will admit that the comments that used her first name were racialized but the actual substance of the complaints about Dr. McKnight were not. She was a weak leader who rewarded loyalty over competence, which came back to bite her in the a** when the Biedelman stuff hit the Washington Post. Her office had the chance to handle those investigations correctly, but chose to put the investigator on leave rather than actually clean house.

For anyone who has been in a toxic workplace with an insecure leader, it was clear what was happening inside the CO. A culture of cover-ups and CYA, indecipherable memos full of jargon, and a pass-the-buck failure to take responsibility.

I think Felder did a good job cleaning up that mess, and hope that Taylor can pick up where Felder left off.

Exactly the countless posts referring to her as "Monifa" were offensive and clearly racial. This started on day one, and these same posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did. Well, something finally stuck and they got rid of her.

Josh?
Call me Josh Starr.
That was racial?

Stop right now. Josh Starr is a White male, which is the most powerful demographic in the United States. Easy enough for him to invite people to use his first name without losing his power. It's not the same for a Black female. It's especially important to note that Dr. McKnight never invited the general public to call her Monifa.

That’s actually false. She actually launched a hashtag on social media using her first name which she called #MomentswithMonifa: https://montgomeryperspective.com/2024/06/17/a-moment-with-monifa/

Monica’s blind defenders seem to be unwilling to look at and acknowledge her actual words and actions and instead insist anyone who says anything critical about her is racist and biased.

That's recent, after the fact. But you knew that.
DP

What difference does it make? Clearly she doesn’t see calling her by her first name as some kind of slight. Unless you think her Dr title is only required so long as she is superintendent. Maybe you should stop taking offense over something that clearly isn’t offensive to the person on whose behalf you’re defending. Dr. McKnight clearly does not mind being called by her first name, Monifa.

Did she invite you to call her Monifa when she was superintendent, or immediately thereafter? She did not. So all the time you have been calling her Monifa in your DCUM posts, you were being disrespectful. And if you don't get it, you need to do better.

She invited EVERYONE to call her Monifa when she invited them to publicly share their #MomentwithMonifa on social media. How is this unclear to you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the reason we gave her millions of our tax dollars regardless of corruption was for her to f off and go have fun retiring on our hard earned money. Why cant hiring personell admit this is a ridiculously moronic and hazardous decision? I hope someone is fired for this but my intuition says this is more reflective of the degraded standards and inaccountibility to the people who fund thwir bloated salaries.

Meanwhile we had schools without copy paper or toilet paper. Wish we did have to give Monifa McKnight a payout but I guess the increased cost of lawyers would have made up the difference. As a future employer, UMD had to know she was trouble.

She is trouble with connections at the state level to get that UMD job, about which the dean of the College of Education is well aware. McKnight has a thinly conceived job description at UMD, and she won't be in charge of supervising people or programs. While she is probably making decent money, she can't easily destroy lives at UMD. If she is smart, she will keep her head down and just draw that paycheck for however long that fellowship carries her.

She was a fine super. She took a bullet for the BoE, but blaming her for the failures of her predecessors hardly seems fair.

What McKnight did was lie to the BOE about the whole Beidleman mess. Once she lied to the board, and those members found out about her lies through the investigations, that was it. She was shown the exit door, despite a few personal friends on the board pushing for support.

The BOE only let her go after public outrage. Otherwise they didn't care.

They scapegoated her to cover their failings.

The BoE's primary failing was giving her the job to begin with, when she wasn't ready. From Day 1, she demonstrated that she took the job too soon and didn't have the requisite experience or judgement to carry the district forward. It is always hard to "come up" from inside, given various histories and loyalties and back-scratching, but Dr. McKnight was particularly unsuited to be elevated because she had more to hide, and was less secure in her role.

That's why you saw her immediately bring in a bunch of cronies to scaffold her. That a move made out of weakness, not strength.

I did get the impression that a few people weren't happy about having an AA woman in charge.

Source for this? I work for MCPS and I never heard or saw anything regarding her race being a factor from anyone. Thousands of teachers and administrators together voted no confidence because we believed she was not capable, didn’t communicate well with anyone, and implemented polices and programs without proper vetting.

It was perfectly clear just from reading the complaints on this board.

I will admit that the comments that used her first name were racialized but the actual substance of the complaints about Dr. McKnight were not. She was a weak leader who rewarded loyalty over competence, which came back to bite her in the a** when the Biedelman stuff hit the Washington Post. Her office had the chance to handle those investigations correctly, but chose to put the investigator on leave rather than actually clean house.

For anyone who has been in a toxic workplace with an insecure leader, it was clear what was happening inside the CO. A culture of cover-ups and CYA, indecipherable memos full of jargon, and a pass-the-buck failure to take responsibility.

I think Felder did a good job cleaning up that mess, and hope that Taylor can pick up where Felder left off.

Exactly the countless posts referring to her as "Monifa" were offensive and clearly racial. This started on day one, and these same posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did. Well, something finally stuck and they got rid of her.

Josh?
Call me Josh Starr.
That was racial?

Stop right now. Josh Starr is a White male, which is the most powerful demographic in the United States. Easy enough for him to invite people to use his first name without losing his power. It's not the same for a Black female. It's especially important to note that Dr. McKnight never invited the general public to call her Monifa.

That’s actually false. She actually launched a hashtag on social media using her first name which she called #MomentswithMonifa: https://montgomeryperspective.com/2024/06/17/a-moment-with-monifa/

Monica’s blind defenders seem to be unwilling to look at and acknowledge her actual words and actions and instead insist anyone who says anything critical about her is racist and biased.

That's recent, after the fact. But you knew that.
DP

What difference does it make? Clearly she doesn’t see calling her by her first name as some kind of slight. Unless you think her Dr title is only required so long as she is superintendent. Maybe you should stop taking offense over something that clearly isn’t offensive to the person on whose behalf you’re defending. Dr. McKnight clearly does not mind being called by her first name, Monifa.

Did she invite you to call her Monifa when she was superintendent, or immediately thereafter? She did not. So all the time you have been calling her Monifa in your DCUM posts, you were being disrespectful. And if you don't get it, you need to do better.

She invited EVERYONE to call her Monifa when she invited them to publicly share their #MomentwithMonifa on social media. How is this unclear to you?

That was after she was shown the door, and glad she owned the racists by taking her name back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the reason we gave her millions of our tax dollars regardless of corruption was for her to f off and go have fun retiring on our hard earned money. Why cant hiring personell admit this is a ridiculously moronic and hazardous decision? I hope someone is fired for this but my intuition says this is more reflective of the degraded standards and inaccountibility to the people who fund thwir bloated salaries.

Meanwhile we had schools without copy paper or toilet paper. Wish we did have to give Monifa McKnight a payout but I guess the increased cost of lawyers would have made up the difference. As a future employer, UMD had to know she was trouble.

She is trouble with connections at the state level to get that UMD job, about which the dean of the College of Education is well aware. McKnight has a thinly conceived job description at UMD, and she won't be in charge of supervising people or programs. While she is probably making decent money, she can't easily destroy lives at UMD. If she is smart, she will keep her head down and just draw that paycheck for however long that fellowship carries her.

She was a fine super. She took a bullet for the BoE, but blaming her for the failures of her predecessors hardly seems fair.

What McKnight did was lie to the BOE about the whole Beidleman mess. Once she lied to the board, and those members found out about her lies through the investigations, that was it. She was shown the exit door, despite a few personal friends on the board pushing for support.

The BOE only let her go after public outrage. Otherwise they didn't care.

They scapegoated her to cover their failings.

The BoE's primary failing was giving her the job to begin with, when she wasn't ready. From Day 1, she demonstrated that she took the job too soon and didn't have the requisite experience or judgement to carry the district forward. It is always hard to "come up" from inside, given various histories and loyalties and back-scratching, but Dr. McKnight was particularly unsuited to be elevated because she had more to hide, and was less secure in her role.

That's why you saw her immediately bring in a bunch of cronies to scaffold her. That a move made out of weakness, not strength.

I did get the impression that a few people weren't happy about having an AA woman in charge.

Source for this? I work for MCPS and I never heard or saw anything regarding her race being a factor from anyone. Thousands of teachers and administrators together voted no confidence because we believed she was not capable, didn’t communicate well with anyone, and implemented polices and programs without proper vetting.

It was perfectly clear just from reading the complaints on this board.

I will admit that the comments that used her first name were racialized but the actual substance of the complaints about Dr. McKnight were not. She was a weak leader who rewarded loyalty over competence, which came back to bite her in the a** when the Biedelman stuff hit the Washington Post. Her office had the chance to handle those investigations correctly, but chose to put the investigator on leave rather than actually clean house.

For anyone who has been in a toxic workplace with an insecure leader, it was clear what was happening inside the CO. A culture of cover-ups and CYA, indecipherable memos full of jargon, and a pass-the-buck failure to take responsibility.

I think Felder did a good job cleaning up that mess, and hope that Taylor can pick up where Felder left off.

Exactly the countless posts referring to her as "Monifa" were offensive and clearly racial. This started on day one, and these same posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did. Well, something finally stuck and they got rid of her.

These two things can both be true, and in this case, are:
-Some posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did
-She made many poor decisions, did not communicate well, and did not take responsibility

Exactly. Both things can be true!

Just because both can be true doesn't make it so. All I know is people calling her her "Monifa" started complaining on day one and that made it seem racist.

If that's all you know, you missed a lot.

Referring to Dr. McKnight by her first name felt disrespectful, especially given her credentials. We should strive to treat each other with a little kindness and respect, not make lame jokes to justify racism.

Yes...and: even though some people were disrespectful to her, that doesn't excuse her poor record as superintendent.

Yes, it's inexcusable that she inherited the Beidleman problem which had been documented and ignored by the previous supers.

It's not about when the "problem" began. It's how she had the chance to fix things while she was in charge, but instead exacerbated them by promoting him. And as previously mentioned, the Beidelman fiasco was unfortunately not her only failing.

That's very dishonest. You know she relies on her staff for these things and since the 100 anonymous complaints about him had been ignored for years before her tenure. It's hardly fair to hang that on her unless you were one of those posters who were out to get her from day one.

[Anonymous]

Monifa had two excuses that were feasible; incompetence or corrupt. Have fun in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the reason we gave her millions of our tax dollars regardless of corruption was for her to f off and go have fun retiring on our hard earned money. Why cant hiring personell admit this is a ridiculously moronic and hazardous decision? I hope someone is fired for this but my intuition says this is more reflective of the degraded standards and inaccountibility to the people who fund thwir bloated salaries.

Meanwhile we had schools without copy paper or toilet paper. Wish we did have to give Monifa McKnight a payout but I guess the increased cost of lawyers would have made up the difference. As a future employer, UMD had to know she was trouble.

She is trouble with connections at the state level to get that UMD job, about which the dean of the College of Education is well aware. McKnight has a thinly conceived job description at UMD, and she won't be in charge of supervising people or programs. While she is probably making decent money, she can't easily destroy lives at UMD. If she is smart, she will keep her head down and just draw that paycheck for however long that fellowship carries her.

She was a fine super. She took a bullet for the BoE, but blaming her for the failures of her predecessors hardly seems fair.

What McKnight did was lie to the BOE about the whole Beidleman mess. Once she lied to the board, and those members found out about her lies through the investigations, that was it. She was shown the exit door, despite a few personal friends on the board pushing for support.

The BOE only let her go after public outrage. Otherwise they didn't care.

They scapegoated her to cover their failings.

The BoE's primary failing was giving her the job to begin with, when she wasn't ready. From Day 1, she demonstrated that she took the job too soon and didn't have the requisite experience or judgement to carry the district forward. It is always hard to "come up" from inside, given various histories and loyalties and back-scratching, but Dr. McKnight was particularly unsuited to be elevated because she had more to hide, and was less secure in her role.

That's why you saw her immediately bring in a bunch of cronies to scaffold her. That a move made out of weakness, not strength.

I did get the impression that a few people weren't happy about having an AA woman in charge.

Source for this? I work for MCPS and I never heard or saw anything regarding her race being a factor from anyone. Thousands of teachers and administrators together voted no confidence because we believed she was not capable, didn’t communicate well with anyone, and implemented polices and programs without proper vetting.

It was perfectly clear just from reading the complaints on this board.

I will admit that the comments that used her first name were racialized but the actual substance of the complaints about Dr. McKnight were not. She was a weak leader who rewarded loyalty over competence, which came back to bite her in the a** when the Biedelman stuff hit the Washington Post. Her office had the chance to handle those investigations correctly, but chose to put the investigator on leave rather than actually clean house.

For anyone who has been in a toxic workplace with an insecure leader, it was clear what was happening inside the CO. A culture of cover-ups and CYA, indecipherable memos full of jargon, and a pass-the-buck failure to take responsibility.

I think Felder did a good job cleaning up that mess, and hope that Taylor can pick up where Felder left off.

Exactly the countless posts referring to her as "Monifa" were offensive and clearly racial. This started on day one, and these same posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did. Well, something finally stuck and they got rid of her.

These two things can both be true, and in this case, are:
-Some posters were always trying to find fault with everything she did
-She made many poor decisions, did not communicate well, and did not take responsibility

Exactly. Both things can be true!

Just because both can be true doesn't make it so. All I know is people calling her her "Monifa" started complaining on day one and that made it seem racist.

If that's all you know, you missed a lot.

Referring to Dr. McKnight by her first name felt disrespectful, especially given her credentials. We should strive to treat each other with a little kindness and respect, not make lame jokes to justify racism.

Yes...and: even though some people were disrespectful to her, that doesn't excuse her poor record as superintendent.

Yes, it's inexcusable that she inherited the Beidleman problem which had been documented and ignored by the previous supers.

It's not about when the "problem" began. It's how she had the chance to fix things while she was in charge, but instead exacerbated them by promoting him. And as previously mentioned, the Beidelman fiasco was unfortunately not her only failing.

That's very dishonest. You know she relies on her staff for these things and since the 100 anonymous complaints about him had been ignored for years before her tenure. It's hardly fair to hang that on her unless you were one of those posters who were out to get her from day one.

But she was one of the ones responsible for the complaints being ignored, and not doing anything about it! She had been the deputy super since 2019. The inspector general calls this out: "In conducting this review, we found issues with MCPS and DCI’s procedures and processes for handling and investigating complaints involving misconduct by employees. Our findings should not be surprising to some in MCPS senior management because similar observations were identified on at least four previous occasions dating back to 2019. (See Appendix A.) Unfortunately, it does not appear that any substantive action was taken to address the previously noted findings and recommendations."

https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/OIG/Resources/Files/PDF/IGActivity/FY2024/OIG_24-08.pdf