Board wants Monifa to step down

[Anonymous]

A strong leader, which is very hard to find, can take a huge mess and break it down to priorities, assign these out to their leadership team, and get report outs every so often. McKnight and supers ahead of her have a huge staff that they can delegate to. One of the biggest mistakes a leader can make is working or having their teams work in silos, reacting vs. being proactive, and lacking integrity. And I am not just talking about the Beidleman fiasco - this includes funding pet projects, not setting goals, not holding your leadership accountable, and not communicating to your staff, parents and students.
Yes, MCPS is a huge mess, but their are plenty of leadership positions in every area of the business that need to be the ones tasked with putting improvement plans together.
I think at this point, we need a CEO-type person that can break everything down and put together subteams of competent staff to figure out solutions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Monifa is loyal, that is a trait our leaders no longer exhibit and people no longer care for. She was loyal to her friend and promoted him. She stood by him as long as she could.

Yes, she was loyal to a serial sexual harasser

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is a black woman's attempt at protecting a black man who is sexually harrassing women, some who may be black, her version of "anti-racist"?

This is what it comes down to, exactly. Her allegiance to him was identity-based, and her promotion of anti-racism was self-serving. The district’s promotion of her to the office in the first place was cynical tokenism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She showed up to the BOE meeting after they called for her resignation. What is going on?

She showed up with her supporters who packed the audience and heckled the BOE members during the meeting.

Did you miss that?

How she’s handled the request to resign is worth termination on its own.

I've heard that from a few people at central office that she is a bully. Hopefully, the attorneys can reach an agreement sooner, rather than later. It will be good for her tenure to be in the rear view window.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS needs to hire someone who cares about educating all kids without dumbing down the curriculum and instituting equity measures. The smart kids need just as much as the dumb kids. Yes. There are dumb kids..

You can’t educate all kids without equity measures.

Sure you can.

Okay so let’s say you purchase a very rigorous reading curriculum. Great. Everyone is happy until someone says, well what about the blind kids they can’t read the curriculum.
So either you buy the same curriculum in Braille and supply teachers capable of teachers/technology capable of knowing that the kids are making progress with Braille, or the teacher reads everything out loud and then allows the blind kid to respond out loud and also offers audio books or maybe you purchase a completely separate curriculum for the blind students

The above is equity at work.

Better rigorous curriculum is absolutely needed! But they are spending our tax $ on paying legal fees for scandals that have no place. They don't care about who is being hurt by all this: our kids, our community, our society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She showed up to the BOE meeting after they called for her resignation. What is going on?

She showed up with her supporters who packed the audience and heckled the BOE members during the meeting.

Did you miss that?

How she’s handled the request to resign is worth termination on its own.

I've heard that from a few people at central office that she is a bully. Hopefully, the attorneys can reach an agreement sooner, rather than later. It will be good for her tenure to be in the rear view window.

It seems like a pretty easy termination. The contract says MCPS can terminate the contract and they just need to pay her for another year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The schoolboard needs to step down also. The whole MC education system need to be revamped, including materials taught.

Talk about jobs that don't pay enough to get quality candidates with the kind of experience needed - the BOE members make $25,000 per year. They are basically volunteers. They also have virtually no staff separate from MCPS staff. They are good-hearted but do not have the skills or the resources to provide true oversight to MCPS let alone run it themselves if the administration is not doing a good job.

[Anonymous]

Holy smokes, is this really the culture at MCPS? It’s beyond disturbing if even remotely true.

[Anonymous]

Termination clause:
If the termination is because of a judicially determined material breach of this Contract by the Board, the Superintendent shall receive as severance an amount equal to a period of twelve months, or the salary remaining for the term of this Contract if less than one year remains, whichever is the lesser amount, and any benefits to which she may be entitled under this Contract. However, in no event shall the severance for separation be less than an amount equal to six months’ salary. The severance shall be the only amounts owed to the Superintendent, and the Superintendent shall not be entitled to recovery of damages or any other amounts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty obvious from that start that she wasn’t up to the job

She's done a fine job and this whole mess with Joel was going on for years before she was even super. You people are nuts.

She should have made the easy, obvious voice of ending the Joel mess as soon as she started. But she didn't.

I'm not saying anyone else MCPS could get could be better (who would want this job?) but she failed at the slow-pitch softball, practically a T-ball.

+1 to the bold. I wouldn’t take the MCPS Super gig for a million dollars. The stress, backstabbbing, and constant 2nd guessing is enough to drive someone crazy. I’m waiting to see if the FCPS Super that came all the way from Washington makes it.

McKnight is part of the cultural rot that has plagued the MCPS central office for years. I have interacted with more than a handful of directors (principals' direct supervisors) over the last decade and only 2 impressed me - Sarah Sirgo and Rotunda Floyd Cooper. I'd support either of them for Superintendent. They are effective, action-oriented leaders who lead with integrity. Oh yeah, and both have left MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The schoolboard needs to step down also. The whole MC education system need to be revamped, including materials taught.

Talk about jobs that don't pay enough to get quality candidates with the kind of experience needed - the BOE members make $25,000 per year. They are basically volunteers. They also have virtually no staff separate from MCPS staff. They are good-hearted but do not have the skills or the resources to provide true oversight to MCPS let alone run it themselves if the administration is not doing a good job.

Need a lawyer or two as in the board

[Anonymous]

I have a different opinion. My opinion is:
- her mishandling of covid
- during the school shooting incident: needing a police escort to cut through traffic, showing up late to the press conference, delaying the release of students to worried parents so everyone could see her on TV in an inappropriately bright Barbie pink outfit
- letting MCPS waste money on million dollar bocce, millions on Kid Museum, Leader in Me, electric buses versus fixing schools with asbestos or bad infrastructure
- wasting time on racism witch hunts while MCPS academics slid off the US News rankings

Should I go on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty obvious from that start that she wasn’t up to the job

She's done a fine job and this whole mess with Joel was going on for years before she was even super. You people are nuts.

She should have made the easy, obvious voice of ending the Joel mess as soon as she started. But she didn't.

I'm not saying anyone else MCPS could get could be better (who would want this job?) but she failed at the slow-pitch softball, practically a T-ball.

+1 to the bold. I wouldn’t take the MCPS Super gig for a million dollars. The stress, backstabbbing, and constant 2nd guessing is enough to drive someone crazy. I’m waiting to see if the FCPS Super that came all the way from Washington makes it.

McKnight is part of the cultural rot that has plagued the MCPS central office for years. I have interacted with more than a handful of directors (principals' direct supervisors) over the last decade and only 2 impressed me - Sarah Sirgo and Rotunda Floyd Cooper. I'd support either of them for Superintendent. They are effective, action-oriented leaders who lead with integrity. Oh yeah, and both have left MCPS.

Ohh lord. Sara Sirgo, are you kidding me? I would say she takes part in how our current central office operates. She only left MCPS because her friend became FCPS super and brought her along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The schoolboard needs to step down also. The whole MC education system need to be revamped, including materials taught.

Talk about jobs that don't pay enough to get quality candidates with the kind of experience needed - the BOE members make $25,000 per year. They are basically volunteers. They also have virtually no staff separate from MCPS staff. They are good-hearted but do not have the skills or the resources to provide true oversight to MCPS let alone run it themselves if the administration is not doing a good job.

Need a lawyer or two as in the board

BOE member Lynne Harris is an attorney

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The schoolboard needs to step down also. The whole MC education system need to be revamped, including materials taught.

Talk about jobs that don't pay enough to get quality candidates with the kind of experience needed - the BOE members make $25,000 per year. They are basically volunteers. They also have virtually no staff separate from MCPS staff. They are good-hearted but do not have the skills or the resources to provide true oversight to MCPS let alone run it themselves if the administration is not doing a good job.

Need a lawyer or two as in the board

BOE member Lynne Harris is an attorney

So is BOE member Brenda Wolff.