[Washington Post] Ex-Montgomery superintendent McKnight to get $1.3M in separation deal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just remember: MCPS thought this needed to be settled immediately. The Vigna victims had to litigate. The Gaithersburg sex assault victim had to go all the way to a jury. The Damascus victims had to go through years of litigation while MCPS denied it had any responsibility to provide for safety in school before finally settling after the judge rejected their defenses. What is it about this case that made MCPS handle differently? No one who defends this settlement in any way or who supported this settlement deserves to be on the school board.

To be fair, this was a smaller settlement amount. Even if McKnight wouldn't have won a discrimination lawsuit, she had a good enough case that it could have spent years in litigation. It was cheaper to settle.

The same theory could have applied to the other cases too but MCPS decided to litigate those. A lot of special education claims could be settled for less than this settlement but MCPS litigates those too. This settlement was for more money than she was owed on her contract, so it was no great deal.

Certainly MCPS is willing to spend more on litigation to fight SPED claims, but they do that to scare off additional claims. And it is far from clear that it would have been cheaper to settle the other cases.

I'll admit, the $1.3M was higher than I expected. Some of that might be to reassure future MCPS superintendent applicants that they'll have a golden parachute when they're inevitably fired. Otherwise MCPS would find itself having a very hard time recruiting qualified applicants.

Try as you might, there's no good rationale for this settlement, especially compared to how MCPS handles other potential litigants. The sexual assault defenses served no public policy interests and arguable damaged them as MCPS took outrageous (and unsupportable) positions.

The contract had a generous golden parachute. The settlement was many more times generous. By your rationale, MCPS should have litigated to prevent other superintendents from taking them to the cleaners.

This settlement had one purpose: protect the current board members from having even more of their mismanagement exposed by a disgruntled former employee. That was it.

One-year severance for a position like this is hardly generous. There are relatively few superintendent positions in districts of this scale, and you're almost guaranteed both a long hiring process and a long-distance move.

McKnight thought the board had her back. Right or wrong, the next superintendent won't make the same mistake. I strongly suspect the next contract will have a much larger severance clause for early termination.

And if MCPS would have tried to take her to court over termination for cause, them they definitely would have had a hard time finding a replacement.

I'ts pretty generous. I'm an employment lawyer and i think something between 6 months and a year would have sounded about right to me. She got a lot more than that (closer to 3 years). And MCPS would not have taken her to court. They would have made her an offer, if she rejected it, they would have said, we are invoking the termination for cause provisions of your contract and paying you nothing, and she would have them taken them to court for breach of contract. It is absolutely not clear that she would have won, and she would have had to pay attorneys to bring that suit (or have them work on contingency for a portion of the breach of contract damages.) Since her attorneys apparently charged her 30K just for negotiating the settlement agreement, which seems like kind of a lot to me, I think she would have burned through her damages pretty quickly. It's ridiculous to me that the Board paid out her full contract as if they had zero cause for terminating it. If they really believed they had no cause for termination, they should have kept her on and avoided all this disruption. It's one thing to discount based on litigation risk, but it's totally another just to roll over and give her everything she would have gotten in litigation and more (e.g., allowing her child to attend MCPS schools for free even if she lives out of county).

Right. I fully expected the BOE to let her finish out her term and not renew her contract, but to fire her mid-contract, they had to have cause to do so. And if they had cause, why bend over backwards to appease Monifa's demands? It's because she had dirt on them as well. So it was in everyone's best interests to keep things quiet and just move on from each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just remember: MCPS thought this needed to be settled immediately. The Vigna victims had to litigate. The Gaithersburg sex assault victim had to go all the way to a jury. The Damascus victims had to go through years of litigation while MCPS denied it had any responsibility to provide for safety in school before finally settling after the judge rejected their defenses. What is it about this case that made MCPS handle differently? No one who defends this settlement in any way or who supported this settlement deserves to be on the school board.

To be fair, this was a smaller settlement amount. Even if McKnight wouldn't have won a discrimination lawsuit, she had a good enough case that it could have spent years in litigation. It was cheaper to settle.

The same theory could have applied to the other cases too but MCPS decided to litigate those. A lot of special education claims could be settled for less than this settlement but MCPS litigates those too. This settlement was for more money than she was owed on her contract, so it was no great deal.

Certainly MCPS is willing to spend more on litigation to fight SPED claims, but they do that to scare off additional claims. And it is far from clear that it would have been cheaper to settle the other cases.

I'll admit, the $1.3M was higher than I expected. Some of that might be to reassure future MCPS superintendent applicants that they'll have a golden parachute when they're inevitably fired. Otherwise MCPS would find itself having a very hard time recruiting qualified applicants.

Try as you might, there's no good rationale for this settlement, especially compared to how MCPS handles other potential litigants. The sexual assault defenses served no public policy interests and arguable damaged them as MCPS took outrageous (and unsupportable) positions.

The contract had a generous golden parachute. The settlement was many more times generous. By your rationale, MCPS should have litigated to prevent other superintendents from taking them to the cleaners.

This settlement had one purpose: protect the current board members from having even more of their mismanagement exposed by a disgruntled former employee. That was it.

One-year severance for a position like this is hardly generous. There are relatively few superintendent positions in districts of this scale, and you're almost guaranteed both a long hiring process and a long-distance move.

McKnight thought the board had her back. Right or wrong, the next superintendent won't make the same mistake. I strongly suspect the next contract will have a much larger severance clause for early termination.

And if MCPS would have tried to take her to court over termination for cause, them they definitely would have had a hard time finding a replacement.

By that standard a superintendent can pretty much do anything they want, in fact they benefit financially from getting fired since they get more money than they would if they stayed. Great job for someone at the end of their career. SMH.

Your scheme only works for people at retirement age, which generally aren't going to be the best candidates anyway. It would be a very bad sign to only get applicants for superintendent that are 55 or older.

Regardless, in a district like MCPS, there's a very high risk that the superintendent will
be scapegoated. A $300k salary for a few years isn't a good tradeoff for that, unless there's a good severance package. Kind of like a CEO position.

If you’re in charge, whatever happens in your organization is your responsibility. There’s no scapegoating a leader. If the problem is below, you own it. If the board isn’t doing something right, you have to tell them. It’s just not possible to scapegoat the chief executive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it would have been better if MCPS spent 1 million in court firing her

But then she would not stay quiet

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hearing from insiders that Felder is even worse. I can't see how that can be true but it is a problem if that is even the perception.

I figured she was no better than Monifa but to hear that she is WORSE is terrifying.

It just goes to show the BoE doesn't want real change when they appoint one of McKnight's proteges who will continue the same misguided policies.

Felder is not one of McKnight's proteges.

She sure is, she just hides it. They were principals together in MCPS and worked in central office together. Felder left MCPS to follow Shawn Joseph to PG and then Nashville. Joseph and his wife (McKnights sorority sister) are very close with both McKnight and Felder. Joseph works for HYA who helped get McKnight hired. Joseph's fraternity presented McKnight with an achievement award. Felder is also part of Joseph's leadership development academy at Howard University. They are all very connected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hearing from insiders that Felder is even worse. I can't see how that can be true but it is a problem if that is even the perception.

I figured she was no better than Monifa but to hear that she is WORSE is terrifying.

It just goes to show the BoE doesn't want real change when they appoint one of McKnight's proteges who will continue the same misguided policies.

Felder is not one of McKnight's proteges.

She sure is, she just hides it. They were principals together in MCPS and worked in central office together. Felder left MCPS to follow Shawn Joseph to PG and then Nashville. Joseph and his wife (McKnights sorority sister) are very close with both McKnight and Felder. Joseph works for HYA who helped get McKnight hired. Joseph's fraternity presented McKnight with an achievement award. Felder is also part of Joseph's leadership development academy at Howard University. They are all very connected.

What I care about is whether or not Felder will do a good job. To me, it doesn't matter if they know each other, but if Felder is problematic as a leader, I would want to know about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hearing from insiders that Felder is even worse. I can't see how that can be true but it is a problem if that is even the perception.

I figured she was no better than Monifa but to hear that she is WORSE is terrifying.

It just goes to show the BoE doesn't want real change when they appoint one of McKnight's proteges who will continue the same misguided policies.

Felder is not one of McKnight's proteges.

She sure is, she just hides it. They were principals together in MCPS and worked in central office together. Felder left MCPS to follow Shawn Joseph to PG and then Nashville. Joseph and his wife (McKnights sorority sister) are very close with both McKnight and Felder. Joseph works for HYA who helped get McKnight hired. Joseph's fraternity presented McKnight with an achievement award. Felder is also part of Joseph's leadership development academy at Howard University. They are all very connected.

Connected, maybe. Protege, no. Felder is older and had already left her principal position before McKnight began hers. Felder was in central office before McKnight was, not at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just remember: MCPS thought this needed to be settled immediately. The Vigna victims had to litigate. The Gaithersburg sex assault victim had to go all the way to a jury. The Damascus victims had to go through years of litigation while MCPS denied it had any responsibility to provide for safety in school before finally settling after the judge rejected their defenses. What is it about this case that made MCPS handle differently? No one who defends this settlement in any way or who supported this settlement deserves to be on the school board.

To be fair, this was a smaller settlement amount. Even if McKnight wouldn't have won a discrimination lawsuit, she had a good enough case that it could have spent years in litigation. It was cheaper to settle.

The same theory could have applied to the other cases too but MCPS decided to litigate those. A lot of special education claims could be settled for less than this settlement but MCPS litigates those too. This settlement was for more money than she was owed on her contract, so it was no great deal.

Certainly MCPS is willing to spend more on litigation to fight SPED claims, but they do that to scare off additional claims. And it is far from clear that it would have been cheaper to settle the other cases.

I'll admit, the $1.3M was higher than I expected. Some of that might be to reassure future MCPS superintendent applicants that they'll have a golden parachute when they're inevitably fired. Otherwise MCPS would find itself having a very hard time recruiting qualified applicants.

Try as you might, there's no good rationale for this settlement, especially compared to how MCPS handles other potential litigants. The sexual assault defenses served no public policy interests and arguable damaged them as MCPS took outrageous (and unsupportable) positions.

The contract had a generous golden parachute. The settlement was many more times generous. By your rationale, MCPS should have litigated to prevent other superintendents from taking them to the cleaners.

This settlement had one purpose: protect the current board members from having even more of their mismanagement exposed by a disgruntled former employee. That was it.

One-year severance for a position like this is hardly generous. There are relatively few superintendent positions in districts of this scale, and you're almost guaranteed both a long hiring process and a long-distance move.

McKnight thought the board had her back. Right or wrong, the next superintendent won't make the same mistake. I strongly suspect the next contract will have a much larger severance clause for early termination.

And if MCPS would have tried to take her to court over termination for cause, them they definitely would have had a hard time finding a replacement.

I'ts pretty generous. I'm an employment lawyer and i think something between 6 months and a year would have sounded about right to me. She got a lot more than that (closer to 3 years). And MCPS would not have taken her to court. They would have made her an offer, if she rejected it, they would have said, we are invoking the termination for cause provisions of your contract and paying you nothing, and she would have them taken them to court for breach of contract. It is absolutely not clear that she would have won, and she would have had to pay attorneys to bring that suit (or have them work on contingency for a portion of the breach of contract damages.) Since her attorneys apparently charged her 30K just for negotiating the settlement agreement, which seems like kind of a lot to me, I think she would have burned through her damages pretty quickly. It's ridiculous to me that the Board paid out her full contract as if they had zero cause for terminating it. If they really believed they had no cause for termination, they should have kept her on and avoided all this disruption. It's one thing to discount based on litigation risk, but it's totally another just to roll over and give her everything she would have gotten in litigation and more (e.g., allowing her child to attend MCPS schools for free even if she lives out of county).

Right. I fully expected the BOE to let her finish out her term and not renew her contract, but to fire her mid-contract, they had to have cause to do so. And if they had cause, why bend over backwards to appease Monifa's demands? It's because she had dirt on them as well. So it was in everyone's best interests to keep things quiet and just move on from each other.

But they did pay, indicating that the MCPS lawyers didn't think they had cause to terminate. Why did they do so anyway? Because it is an election year and they wanted to push the blame onto McKnight before people started looking closely at them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just remember: MCPS thought this needed to be settled immediately. The Vigna victims had to litigate. The Gaithersburg sex assault victim had to go all the way to a jury. The Damascus victims had to go through years of litigation while MCPS denied it had any responsibility to provide for safety in school before finally settling after the judge rejected their defenses. What is it about this case that made MCPS handle differently? No one who defends this settlement in any way or who supported this settlement deserves to be on the school board.

To be fair, this was a smaller settlement amount. Even if McKnight wouldn't have won a discrimination lawsuit, she had a good enough case that it could have spent years in litigation. It was cheaper to settle.

The same theory could have applied to the other cases too but MCPS decided to litigate those. A lot of special education claims could be settled for less than this settlement but MCPS litigates those too. This settlement was for more money than she was owed on her contract, so it was no great deal.

Certainly MCPS is willing to spend more on litigation to fight SPED claims, but they do that to scare off additional claims. And it is far from clear that it would have been cheaper to settle the other cases.

I'll admit, the $1.3M was higher than I expected. Some of that might be to reassure future MCPS superintendent applicants that they'll have a golden parachute when they're inevitably fired. Otherwise MCPS would find itself having a very hard time recruiting qualified applicants.

Try as you might, there's no good rationale for this settlement, especially compared to how MCPS handles other potential litigants. The sexual assault defenses served no public policy interests and arguable damaged them as MCPS took outrageous (and unsupportable) positions.

The contract had a generous golden parachute. The settlement was many more times generous. By your rationale, MCPS should have litigated to prevent other superintendents from taking them to the cleaners.

This settlement had one purpose: protect the current board members from having even more of their mismanagement exposed by a disgruntled former employee. That was it.

One-year severance for a position like this is hardly generous. There are relatively few superintendent positions in districts of this scale, and you're almost guaranteed both a long hiring process and a long-distance move.

McKnight thought the board had her back. Right or wrong, the next superintendent won't make the same mistake. I strongly suspect the next contract will have a much larger severance clause for early termination.

And if MCPS would have tried to take her to court over termination for cause, them they definitely would have had a hard time finding a replacement.

I'ts pretty generous. I'm an employment lawyer and i think something between 6 months and a year would have sounded about right to me. She got a lot more than that (closer to 3 years). And MCPS would not have taken her to court. They would have made her an offer, if she rejected it, they would have said, we are invoking the termination for cause provisions of your contract and paying you nothing, and she would have them taken them to court for breach of contract. It is absolutely not clear that she would have won, and she would have had to pay attorneys to bring that suit (or have them work on contingency for a portion of the breach of contract damages.) Since her attorneys apparently charged her 30K just for negotiating the settlement agreement, which seems like kind of a lot to me, I think she would have burned through her damages pretty quickly. It's ridiculous to me that the Board paid out her full contract as if they had zero cause for terminating it. If they really believed they had no cause for termination, they should have kept her on and avoided all this disruption. It's one thing to discount based on litigation risk, but it's totally another just to roll over and give her everything she would have gotten in litigation and more (e.g., allowing her child to attend MCPS schools for free even if she lives out of county).

Right. I fully expected the BOE to let her finish out her term and not renew her contract, but to fire her mid-contract, they had to have cause to do so. And if they had cause, why bend over backwards to appease Monifa's demands? It's because she had dirt on them as well. So it was in everyone's best interests to keep things quiet and just move on from each other.

But they did pay, indicating that the MCPS lawyers didn't think they had cause to terminate. Why did they do so anyway? Because it is an election year and they wanted to push the blame onto McKnight before people started looking closely at them.

Why would you assume the MCPS lawyers are competent or looking out for the best interests of the school system? Their boss was the potential plaintiff in the lawsuit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just remember: MCPS thought this needed to be settled immediately. The Vigna victims had to litigate. The Gaithersburg sex assault victim had to go all the way to a jury. The Damascus victims had to go through years of litigation while MCPS denied it had any responsibility to provide for safety in school before finally settling after the judge rejected their defenses. What is it about this case that made MCPS handle differently? No one who defends this settlement in any way or who supported this settlement deserves to be on the school board.

To be fair, this was a smaller settlement amount. Even if McKnight wouldn't have won a discrimination lawsuit, she had a good enough case that it could have spent years in litigation. It was cheaper to settle.

The same theory could have applied to the other cases too but MCPS decided to litigate those. A lot of special education claims could be settled for less than this settlement but MCPS litigates those too. This settlement was for more money than she was owed on her contract, so it was no great deal.

Certainly MCPS is willing to spend more on litigation to fight SPED claims, but they do that to scare off additional claims. And it is far from clear that it would have been cheaper to settle the other cases.

I'll admit, the $1.3M was higher than I expected. Some of that might be to reassure future MCPS superintendent applicants that they'll have a golden parachute when they're inevitably fired. Otherwise MCPS would find itself having a very hard time recruiting qualified applicants.

Try as you might, there's no good rationale for this settlement, especially compared to how MCPS handles other potential litigants. The sexual assault defenses served no public policy interests and arguable damaged them as MCPS took outrageous (and unsupportable) positions.

The contract had a generous golden parachute. The settlement was many more times generous. By your rationale, MCPS should have litigated to prevent other superintendents from taking them to the cleaners.

This settlement had one purpose: protect the current board members from having even more of their mismanagement exposed by a disgruntled former employee. That was it.

One-year severance for a position like this is hardly generous. There are relatively few superintendent positions in districts of this scale, and you're almost guaranteed both a long hiring process and a long-distance move.

McKnight thought the board had her back. Right or wrong, the next superintendent won't make the same mistake. I strongly suspect the next contract will have a much larger severance clause for early termination.

And if MCPS would have tried to take her to court over termination for cause, them they definitely would have had a hard time finding a replacement.

I'ts pretty generous. I'm an employment lawyer and i think something between 6 months and a year would have sounded about right to me. She got a lot more than that (closer to 3 years). And MCPS would not have taken her to court. They would have made her an offer, if she rejected it, they would have said, we are invoking the termination for cause provisions of your contract and paying you nothing, and she would have them taken them to court for breach of contract. It is absolutely not clear that she would have won, and she would have had to pay attorneys to bring that suit (or have them work on contingency for a portion of the breach of contract damages.) Since her attorneys apparently charged her 30K just for negotiating the settlement agreement, which seems like kind of a lot to me, I think she would have burned through her damages pretty quickly. It's ridiculous to me that the Board paid out her full contract as if they had zero cause for terminating it. If they really believed they had no cause for termination, they should have kept her on and avoided all this disruption. It's one thing to discount based on litigation risk, but it's totally another just to roll over and give her everything she would have gotten in litigation and more (e.g., allowing her child to attend MCPS schools for free even if she lives out of county).

Right. I fully expected the BOE to let her finish out her term and not renew her contract, but to fire her mid-contract, they had to have cause to do so. And if they had cause, why bend over backwards to appease Monifa's demands? It's because she had dirt on them as well. So it was in everyone's best interests to keep things quiet and just move on from each other.

But they did pay, indicating that the MCPS lawyers didn't think they had cause to terminate. Why did they do so anyway? Because it is an election year and they wanted to push the blame onto McKnight before people started looking closely at them.

Why would you assume the MCPS lawyers are competent or looking out for the best interests of the school system? Their boss was the potential plaintiff in the lawsuit.

That's not how it works. The lawyers were working for the Board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just remember: MCPS thought this needed to be settled immediately. The Vigna victims had to litigate. The Gaithersburg sex assault victim had to go all the way to a jury. The Damascus victims had to go through years of litigation while MCPS denied it had any responsibility to provide for safety in school before finally settling after the judge rejected their defenses. What is it about this case that made MCPS handle differently? No one who defends this settlement in any way or who supported this settlement deserves to be on the school board.

To be fair, this was a smaller settlement amount. Even if McKnight wouldn't have won a discrimination lawsuit, she had a good enough case that it could have spent years in litigation. It was cheaper to settle.

The same theory could have applied to the other cases too but MCPS decided to litigate those. A lot of special education claims could be settled for less than this settlement but MCPS litigates those too. This settlement was for more money than she was owed on her contract, so it was no great deal.

Certainly MCPS is willing to spend more on litigation to fight SPED claims, but they do that to scare off additional claims. And it is far from clear that it would have been cheaper to settle the other cases.

I'll admit, the $1.3M was higher than I expected. Some of that might be to reassure future MCPS superintendent applicants that they'll have a golden parachute when they're inevitably fired. Otherwise MCPS would find itself having a very hard time recruiting qualified applicants.

Try as you might, there's no good rationale for this settlement, especially compared to how MCPS handles other potential litigants. The sexual assault defenses served no public policy interests and arguable damaged them as MCPS took outrageous (and unsupportable) positions.

The contract had a generous golden parachute. The settlement was many more times generous. By your rationale, MCPS should have litigated to prevent other superintendents from taking them to the cleaners.

This settlement had one purpose: protect the current board members from having even more of their mismanagement exposed by a disgruntled former employee. That was it.

One-year severance for a position like this is hardly generous. There are relatively few superintendent positions in districts of this scale, and you're almost guaranteed both a long hiring process and a long-distance move.

McKnight thought the board had her back. Right or wrong, the next superintendent won't make the same mistake. I strongly suspect the next contract will have a much larger severance clause for early termination.

And if MCPS would have tried to take her to court over termination for cause, them they definitely would have had a hard time finding a replacement.

I'ts pretty generous. I'm an employment lawyer and i think something between 6 months and a year would have sounded about right to me. She got a lot more than that (closer to 3 years). And MCPS would not have taken her to court. They would have made her an offer, if she rejected it, they would have said, we are invoking the termination for cause provisions of your contract and paying you nothing, and she would have them taken them to court for breach of contract. It is absolutely not clear that she would have won, and she would have had to pay attorneys to bring that suit (or have them work on contingency for a portion of the breach of contract damages.) Since her attorneys apparently charged her 30K just for negotiating the settlement agreement, which seems like kind of a lot to me, I think she would have burned through her damages pretty quickly. It's ridiculous to me that the Board paid out her full contract as if they had zero cause for terminating it. If they really believed they had no cause for termination, they should have kept her on and avoided all this disruption. It's one thing to discount based on litigation risk, but it's totally another just to roll over and give her everything she would have gotten in litigation and more (e.g., allowing her child to attend MCPS schools for free even if she lives out of county).

Right. I fully expected the BOE to let her finish out her term and not renew her contract, but to fire her mid-contract, they had to have cause to do so. And if they had cause, why bend over backwards to appease Monifa's demands? It's because she had dirt on them as well. So it was in everyone's best interests to keep things quiet and just move on from each other.

But they did pay, indicating that the MCPS lawyers didn't think they had cause to terminate. Why did they do so anyway? Because it is an election year and they wanted to push the blame onto McKnight before people started looking closely at them.

Why would you assume the MCPS lawyers are competent or looking out for the best interests of the school system? Their boss was the potential plaintiff in the lawsuit.

That's not how it works. The lawyers were working for the Board.

The board that makes fantastic hiring decisions?

[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:Just remember: MCPS thought this needed to be settled immediately. The Vigna victims had to litigate. The Gaithersburg sex assault victim had to go all the way to a jury. The Damascus victims had to go through years of litigation while MCPS denied it had any responsibility to provide for safety in school before finally settling after the judge rejected their defenses. What is it about this case that made MCPS handle differently? No one who defends this settlement in any way or who supported this settlement deserves to be on the school board.

To be fair, this was a smaller settlement amount. Even if McKnight wouldn't have won a discrimination lawsuit, she had a good enough case that it could have spent years in litigation. It was cheaper to settle.

The same theory could have applied to the other cases too but MCPS decided to litigate those. A lot of special education claims could be settled for less than this settlement but MCPS litigates those too. This settlement was for more money than she was owed on her contract, so it was no great deal.

Certainly MCPS is willing to spend more on litigation to fight SPED claims, but they do that to scare off additional claims. And it is far from clear that it would have been cheaper to settle the other cases.

I'll admit, the $1.3M was higher than I expected. Some of that might be to reassure future MCPS superintendent applicants that they'll have a golden parachute when they're inevitably fired. Otherwise MCPS would find itself having a very hard time recruiting qualified applicants.

Try as you might, there's no good rationale for this settlement, especially compared to how MCPS handles other potential litigants. The sexual assault defenses served no public policy interests and arguable damaged them as MCPS took outrageous (and unsupportable) positions.

The contract had a generous golden parachute. The settlement was many more times generous. By your rationale, MCPS should have litigated to prevent other superintendents from taking them to the cleaners.

This settlement had one purpose: protect the current board members from having even more of their mismanagement exposed by a disgruntled former employee. That was it.

One-year severance for a position like this is hardly generous. There are relatively few superintendent positions in districts of this scale, and you're almost guaranteed both a long hiring process and a long-distance move.

McKnight thought the board had her back. Right or wrong, the next superintendent won't make the same mistake. I strongly suspect the next contract will have a much larger severance clause for early termination.

And if MCPS would have tried to take her to court over termination for cause, them they definitely would have had a hard time finding a replacement.

I'ts pretty generous. I'm an employment lawyer and i think something between 6 months and a year would have sounded about right to me. She got a lot more than that (closer to 3 years). And MCPS would not have taken her to court. They would have made her an offer, if she rejected it, they would have said, we are invoking the termination for cause provisions of your contract and paying you nothing, and she would have them taken them to court for breach of contract. It is absolutely not clear that she would have won, and she would have had to pay attorneys to bring that suit (or have them work on contingency for a portion of the breach of contract damages.) Since her attorneys apparently charged her 30K just for negotiating the settlement agreement, which seems like kind of a lot to me, I think she would have burned through her damages pretty quickly. It's ridiculous to me that the Board paid out her full contract as if they had zero cause for terminating it. If they really believed they had no cause for termination, they should have kept her on and avoided all this disruption. It's one thing to discount based on litigation risk, but it's totally another just to roll over and give her everything she would have gotten in litigation and more (e.g., allowing her child to attend MCPS schools for free even if she lives out of county).

Right. I fully expected the BOE to let her finish out her term and not renew her contract, but to fire her mid-contract, they had to have cause to do so. And if they had cause, why bend over backwards to appease Monifa's demands? It's because she had dirt on them as well. So it was in everyone's best interests to keep things quiet and just move on from each other.

But they did pay, indicating that the MCPS lawyers didn't think they had cause to terminate. Why did they do so anyway? Because it is an election year and they wanted to push the blame onto McKnight before people started looking closely at them.

Why would you assume the MCPS lawyers are competent or looking out for the best interests of the school system? Their boss was the potential plaintiff in the lawsuit.

That's not how it works. The lawyers were working for the Board.

The board that makes fantastic hiring decisions?

Your apparent theory makes no sense. If McKnight was blackmailing them, why did they fire her at all?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just remember: MCPS thought this needed to be settled immediately. The Vigna victims had to litigate. The Gaithersburg sex assault victim had to go all the way to a jury. The Damascus victims had to go through years of litigation while MCPS denied it had any responsibility to provide for safety in school before finally settling after the judge rejected their defenses. What is it about this case that made MCPS handle differently? No one who defends this settlement in any way or who supported this settlement deserves to be on the school board.

To be fair, this was a smaller settlement amount. Even if McKnight wouldn't have won a discrimination lawsuit, she had a good enough case that it could have spent years in litigation. It was cheaper to settle.

The same theory could have applied to the other cases too but MCPS decided to litigate those. A lot of special education claims could be settled for less than this settlement but MCPS litigates those too. This settlement was for more money than she was owed on her contract, so it was no great deal.

Certainly MCPS is willing to spend more on litigation to fight SPED claims, but they do that to scare off additional claims. And it is far from clear that it would have been cheaper to settle the other cases.

I'll admit, the $1.3M was higher than I expected. Some of that might be to reassure future MCPS superintendent applicants that they'll have a golden parachute when they're inevitably fired. Otherwise MCPS would find itself having a very hard time recruiting qualified applicants.

Try as you might, there's no good rationale for this settlement, especially compared to how MCPS handles other potential litigants. The sexual assault defenses served no public policy interests and arguable damaged them as MCPS took outrageous (and unsupportable) positions.

The contract had a generous golden parachute. The settlement was many more times generous. By your rationale, MCPS should have litigated to prevent other superintendents from taking them to the cleaners.

This settlement had one purpose: protect the current board members from having even more of their mismanagement exposed by a disgruntled former employee. That was it.

One-year severance for a position like this is hardly generous. There are relatively few superintendent positions in districts of this scale, and you're almost guaranteed both a long hiring process and a long-distance move.

McKnight thought the board had her back. Right or wrong, the next superintendent won't make the same mistake. I strongly suspect the next contract will have a much larger severance clause for early termination.

And if MCPS would have tried to take her to court over termination for cause, them they definitely would have had a hard time finding a replacement.

I'ts pretty generous. I'm an employment lawyer and i think something between 6 months and a year would have sounded about right to me. She got a lot more than that (closer to 3 years). And MCPS would not have taken her to court. They would have made her an offer, if she rejected it, they would have said, we are invoking the termination for cause provisions of your contract and paying you nothing, and she would have them taken them to court for breach of contract. It is absolutely not clear that she would have won, and she would have had to pay attorneys to bring that suit (or have them work on contingency for a portion of the breach of contract damages.) Since her attorneys apparently charged her 30K just for negotiating the settlement agreement, which seems like kind of a lot to me, I think she would have burned through her damages pretty quickly. It's ridiculous to me that the Board paid out her full contract as if they had zero cause for terminating it. If they really believed they had no cause for termination, they should have kept her on and avoided all this disruption. It's one thing to discount based on litigation risk, but it's totally another just to roll over and give her everything she would have gotten in litigation and more (e.g., allowing her child to attend MCPS schools for free even if she lives out of county).

Right. I fully expected the BOE to let her finish out her term and not renew her contract, but to fire her mid-contract, they had to have cause to do so. And if they had cause, why bend over backwards to appease Monifa's demands? It's because she had dirt on them as well. So it was in everyone's best interests to keep things quiet and just move on from each other.

But they did pay, indicating that the MCPS lawyers didn't think they had cause to terminate. Why did they do so anyway? Because it is an election year and they wanted to push the blame onto McKnight before people started looking closely at them.

You don’t know what the board lawyers told the board. They could have told the board they had a 75% chance of winning an any lawsuit but that it would go to discover and they’d all have to sit for deposition. I also don’t know whether their lawyers are at all competent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just remember: MCPS thought this needed to be settled immediately. The Vigna victims had to litigate. The Gaithersburg sex assault victim had to go all the way to a jury. The Damascus victims had to go through years of litigation while MCPS denied it had any responsibility to provide for safety in school before finally settling after the judge rejected their defenses. What is it about this case that made MCPS handle differently? No one who defends this settlement in any way or who supported this settlement deserves to be on the school board.

To be fair, this was a smaller settlement amount. Even if McKnight wouldn't have won a discrimination lawsuit, she had a good enough case that it could have spent years in litigation. It was cheaper to settle.

The same theory could have applied to the other cases too but MCPS decided to litigate those. A lot of special education claims could be settled for less than this settlement but MCPS litigates those too. This settlement was for more money than she was owed on her contract, so it was no great deal.

Certainly MCPS is willing to spend more on litigation to fight SPED claims, but they do that to scare off additional claims. And it is far from clear that it would have been cheaper to settle the other cases.

I'll admit, the $1.3M was higher than I expected. Some of that might be to reassure future MCPS superintendent applicants that they'll have a golden parachute when they're inevitably fired. Otherwise MCPS would find itself having a very hard time recruiting qualified applicants.

Try as you might, there's no good rationale for this settlement, especially compared to how MCPS handles other potential litigants. The sexual assault defenses served no public policy interests and arguable damaged them as MCPS took outrageous (and unsupportable) positions.

The contract had a generous golden parachute. The settlement was many more times generous. By your rationale, MCPS should have litigated to prevent other superintendents from taking them to the cleaners.

This settlement had one purpose: protect the current board members from having even more of their mismanagement exposed by a disgruntled former employee. That was it.

One-year severance for a position like this is hardly generous. There are relatively few superintendent positions in districts of this scale, and you're almost guaranteed both a long hiring process and a long-distance move.

McKnight thought the board had her back. Right or wrong, the next superintendent won't make the same mistake. I strongly suspect the next contract will have a much larger severance clause for early termination.

And if MCPS would have tried to take her to court over termination for cause, them they definitely would have had a hard time finding a replacement.

I'ts pretty generous. I'm an employment lawyer and i think something between 6 months and a year would have sounded about right to me. She got a lot more than that (closer to 3 years). And MCPS would not have taken her to court. They would have made her an offer, if she rejected it, they would have said, we are invoking the termination for cause provisions of your contract and paying you nothing, and she would have them taken them to court for breach of contract. It is absolutely not clear that she would have won, and she would have had to pay attorneys to bring that suit (or have them work on contingency for a portion of the breach of contract damages.) Since her attorneys apparently charged her 30K just for negotiating the settlement agreement, which seems like kind of a lot to me, I think she would have burned through her damages pretty quickly. It's ridiculous to me that the Board paid out her full contract as if they had zero cause for terminating it. If they really believed they had no cause for termination, they should have kept her on and avoided all this disruption. It's one thing to discount based on litigation risk, but it's totally another just to roll over and give her everything she would have gotten in litigation and more (e.g., allowing her child to attend MCPS schools for free even if she lives out of county).

Right. I fully expected the BOE to let her finish out her term and not renew her contract, but to fire her mid-contract, they had to have cause to do so. And if they had cause, why bend over backwards to appease Monifa's demands? It's because she had dirt on them as well. So it was in everyone's best interests to keep things quiet and just move on from each other.

But they did pay, indicating that the MCPS lawyers didn't think they had cause to terminate. Why did they do so anyway? Because it is an election year and they wanted to push the blame onto McKnight before people started looking closely at them.

Makes sense to me.

[Anonymous]

She's trash

[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:Just remember: MCPS thought this needed to be settled immediately. The Vigna victims had to litigate. The Gaithersburg sex assault victim had to go all the way to a jury. The Damascus victims had to go through years of litigation while MCPS denied it had any responsibility to provide for safety in school before finally settling after the judge rejected their defenses. What is it about this case that made MCPS handle differently? No one who defends this settlement in any way or who supported this settlement deserves to be on the school board.

To be fair, this was a smaller settlement amount. Even if McKnight wouldn't have won a discrimination lawsuit, she had a good enough case that it could have spent years in litigation. It was cheaper to settle.

The same theory could have applied to the other cases too but MCPS decided to litigate those. A lot of special education claims could be settled for less than this settlement but MCPS litigates those too. This settlement was for more money than she was owed on her contract, so it was no great deal.

Certainly MCPS is willing to spend more on litigation to fight SPED claims, but they do that to scare off additional claims. And it is far from clear that it would have been cheaper to settle the other cases.

I'll admit, the $1.3M was higher than I expected. Some of that might be to reassure future MCPS superintendent applicants that they'll have a golden parachute when they're inevitably fired. Otherwise MCPS would find itself having a very hard time recruiting qualified applicants.

Try as you might, there's no good rationale for this settlement, especially compared to how MCPS handles other potential litigants. The sexual assault defenses served no public policy interests and arguable damaged them as MCPS took outrageous (and unsupportable) positions.

The contract had a generous golden parachute. The settlement was many more times generous. By your rationale, MCPS should have litigated to prevent other superintendents from taking them to the cleaners.

This settlement had one purpose: protect the current board members from having even more of their mismanagement exposed by a disgruntled former employee. That was it.

One-year severance for a position like this is hardly generous. There are relatively few superintendent positions in districts of this scale, and you're almost guaranteed both a long hiring process and a long-distance move.

McKnight thought the board had her back. Right or wrong, the next superintendent won't make the same mistake. I strongly suspect the next contract will have a much larger severance clause for early termination.

And if MCPS would have tried to take her to court over termination for cause, them they definitely would have had a hard time finding a replacement.

I'ts pretty generous. I'm an employment lawyer and i think something between 6 months and a year would have sounded about right to me. She got a lot more than that (closer to 3 years). And MCPS would not have taken her to court. They would have made her an offer, if she rejected it, they would have said, we are invoking the termination for cause provisions of your contract and paying you nothing, and she would have them taken them to court for breach of contract. It is absolutely not clear that she would have won, and she would have had to pay attorneys to bring that suit (or have them work on contingency for a portion of the breach of contract damages.) Since her attorneys apparently charged her 30K just for negotiating the settlement agreement, which seems like kind of a lot to me, I think she would have burned through her damages pretty quickly. It's ridiculous to me that the Board paid out her full contract as if they had zero cause for terminating it. If they really believed they had no cause for termination, they should have kept her on and avoided all this disruption. It's one thing to discount based on litigation risk, but it's totally another just to roll over and give her everything she would have gotten in litigation and more (e.g., allowing her child to attend MCPS schools for free even if she lives out of county).

Right. I fully expected the BOE to let her finish out her term and not renew her contract, but to fire her mid-contract, they had to have cause to do so. And if they had cause, why bend over backwards to appease Monifa's demands? It's because she had dirt on them as well. So it was in everyone's best interests to keep things quiet and just move on from each other.

But they did pay, indicating that the MCPS lawyers didn't think they had cause to terminate. Why did they do so anyway? Because it is an election year and they wanted to push the blame onto McKnight before people started looking closely at them.

Why would you assume the MCPS lawyers are competent or looking out for the best interests of the school system? Their boss was the potential plaintiff in the lawsuit.

That's not how it works. The lawyers were working for the Board.

The board that makes fantastic hiring decisions?

Your apparent theory makes no sense. If McKnight was blackmailing them, why did they fire her at all?

What? Why would McKnight blackmailing the board make her innocent?