Washington Post article about Former Farquhar Administrator

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dear God! The fact that so many knew of these allegations and not only dismissed them but PROMOTED him to further positions of power is disgusting.

The Board of Education recently approved his promotion. I know they are rubberstamps but they have to explain their decision. Will the Apple Ballot endorse any of the incumbents?

Geez, people.

The board has zero visibility on any potential HR actions…but they should. At the very least they should know if any complaints have been filed or investigated. Having said that, I bet any complaints were quietly dismissed.

The WaPo article says board members were directly emailed about Beidleman. So if they didn’t know there was an issue before those emails, they did after that. And the fact that they still voted to approve his appointment to PB despite knowing there were complaints about him is damning.

Presumably they asked questions about any complaints, and presumably they were told the complaints were investigated and determined to be baseless.

Those who conducted the investigation and/or made it go away should be held accountable. I doubt the board had clear visibility.

But if the board did have visibility on the truth and promoted him because they didn’t want to risk being called racist, then that’s an issue that must be addressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s sadder is that McKnight just promotes her friends......

And so did Jerry Weast, Jack Smith and others in the same role.

Name a similar situation involving Weast or Smith. We’ll wait.

The suggestion that it’s “our turn” to have a corrupt and/or incomplete superintendent sounds like Marion Barry-era excuse making. And it’s what a lot of families were hoping to avoid by moving to MoCo.

There were child predators protected in MCPS under both Weast and Smith.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d love an ama with that teacher who praised him to wapo (though apparently knew the allegations were true.) girl, you need to run your media decisions by someone else next time.

Most of the staff had no clue he was leaving. I don't know if she was contacted before or after Paint Branch was announced, but she may have been thinking about protecting her own career and not going on record about her principal with negative comments. Many teachers at FMS are on the party scene, but not all. If we're not there, how in the world do we know what's happening? Rumors. So she has heard about it happening (rumor) but never experienced it because it did not happen to her. She should not be silenced just because it does not fit the narrative.

I always say no comment when the press contacts me about MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:This smacks of someone from an ultra-low-represented population in education administration targeted for advancement and let’s just put blinders on to all the unsubstantiated rumors that we’ve heard.

Meanwhile, said candidate knows exactly how much leverage he has as a member of such ultra-low-represented population in education administration and outright flaunts his ability to do whatever the hell he wants with zero fear of repercussions and, to prove his point, gets repeatedly promoted. Until the media gets the story.

Are there stats on such demographics?

Are black admins really underrepresented?

Note: when calculating representation, one should evaluate it against the demographics of the county…and the black population in the county really isn’t that large. The Latino population is far larger.

You’re right that Latinos are are larger group than blacks across the county, but there are pockets where blacks make up the majority. And Paint Branch is one of them. I believe Paint Branch is 60% black so I’m sure MCPS was prioritizing a black principal for a majority black school, which is not a bad thing, but they picked the wrong black principal for the job.

I’m not sure that’s how principal assignments work. I live in a diverse yet majority white school boundary, and we’ve had black principals at every level.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

In reading the article, Dr. Beidelman is sociopath and an unrepentant liar. Not only does he need to be fired, but several of his enablers as well. Dr. McKnight needs to stop letting bad actors get away with murder just because they're also people of color. It's not ok.

Ew, PP. Seriously. Yuck. Your assumption says nothing about MCPS but a lot about you.

It's a pretty reasonable assumption actually. I am someone who really believes in racial equity but there is definitely a culture of "white people bad, Black people good" in the racial equity space.

As a teacher I would not put quite put it that grossly but in general there are efforts to encourage leadership among POC teachers. My impression is that it has always been about helping our most disadvantaged students get more guidance and better role models. But this principal is clearly a protected serial predator/abuser and shatters that kind of thinking.

+1 I came to say this. The PP is being too broad, but there are several factors in play here. In general, men are fast-tracked in educational settings, because they are rare and because society tells them that they deserve to be in leadership.

In almost every setting in the United States, being a Black man is harder than not being a Black man, but education is an exception. Given the strong pressure for culturally responsive schools, and addressing historical wrongs through specialized programs to get more BIPOC men in administrative/leadership roles, you do find that Black men are coddled, mentored, coached, and excused in situations where others would find themselves disciplined or "stalled" career-wise.

You can't look at this situation without a racial and gender lens. Men protecting men, yes. But also a rare commodity (a Black man in leadership) being protected because it was deemed more important that Black boys have a role model than for teachers of any race to feel physically or emotionally safe in the workplace.

This is a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of a child who will be starting K in one year, this is utterly horrifying. So many people from the very top involved in protecting this monster.

At a minimum, McKnight needs to go.

+1, bucks stops with here for this entire cover up.

[Anonymous]

I am not understanding the jump within this thread to Dr. McKnight should resign. What has allegedly happened here is inexcusable, but she is far above the chain of day-to-day handling of personnel complaints.

Is there evidence that someone informed her directly prior to the WaPo article? Or Is this racism and/or misogyny by a vocal DCUM poster(s)?

There are also implications throughout this thread that she is friends with the perpetrator. What is that based on? If it's just that they must be friends because they are both black educators, you must know that is racist to the core.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With regard to the deleting, in general Jeff removes posts that name specific individuals. I'm guessing that the rationale is that this site is anonymous and anyone could say anything about anyone.

But the WaPo article is well-researched and includes individuals willing to be named as victims, which feels much different than past posts.

Regarding the article (and the situation itself), I'm shocked. I work in a male-dominated field where some "locker room talk" is tolerated but even my workplace would never stand for this level of documented harassment.

I'm wondering how race and gender play into this. In my field, inappropriate remarks are tolerated because the entire environment is so male-dominated that women are expected to just...deal with it.

In this case, you have a young(ish) Black man in a field dominated by white women. Is there an element of "glass elevator" in play? Pushing him forward even as he faced allegations that would have killed the careers of someone who the Powers That Be had a little bit less invested in?

Spot on.

[Anonymous]

Is he a child predator though? Yes he made comments that some were hoes and thots but did he act on them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This article is a bomb! Heads should roll for this.

Not going to happen. Zero accountability in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone paying into this corrupt system should be at the next board meeting demanding transparency.

Agreed. Why, as taxpayers, do we allow this to go on unchecked?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not understanding the jump within this thread to Dr. McKnight should resign. What has allegedly happened here is inexcusable, but she is far above the chain of day-to-day handling of personnel complaints.

Is there evidence that someone informed her directly prior to the WaPo article? Or Is this racism and/or misogyny by a vocal DCUM poster(s)?

There are also implications throughout this thread that she is friends with the perpetrator. What is that based on? If it's just that they must be friends because they are both black educators, you must know that is racist to the core.

Full disclosure: I do not work for mcps.

But I do work for an org with 2k+ staff, and I manage a rather large unit. At my org, HR and the GCO handle sexual harassment complaints quietly (meaning only a select few staff have visibility). But the Director/CEO is always briefed. Leadership needs to be aware of such things.

McKnight had to know. Presumably she receives regular briefings from HR and GCO. If not, she should.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d love an ama with that teacher who praised him to wapo (though apparently knew the allegations were true.) girl, you need to run your media decisions by someone else next time.

Most of the staff had no clue he was leaving. I don't know if she was contacted before or after Paint Branch was announced, but she may have been thinking about protecting her own career and not going on record about her principal with negative comments. Many teachers at FMS are on the party scene, but not all. If we're not there, how in the world do we know what's happening? Rumors. So she has heard about it happening (rumor) but never experienced it because it did not happen to her. She should not be silenced just because it does not fit the narrative.

But then why did she give her name? She could have chosen to remain anonymous like the rest of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had to read that article twice because I just couldn’t believe what I was reading. It was not just one or two things, it was one after the other, and each one felt like it was getting worse. I feel so bad for the teachers and staff who didn’t feel like they had anybody they can turn to because of fears of retaliation. Thankfully, the media finally got involved I guess that’s what you need to do if you are an MC PS it’s go straight to the media.

This is one big reason teachers are so frustrated in MCPS. They have no one to turn to when they are being harassed or bullied or if they are aware of administrators acting inappropriately. The union is weak and not particularly effective. MCPS is all about seniority. They always side with the person who has more power

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d love an ama with that teacher who praised him to wapo (though apparently knew the allegations were true.) girl, you need to run your media decisions by someone else next time.

Yes.

But it’s also interesting and I want to know why he chose his victims.

I was wondering about that too. Maybe he wasn’t all bad but it seems a weird time to praise him.