Board wants Monifa to step down

[Anonymous]

So, I'm somewhat reluctant to engage with the discourse about the reporting for all of the reasons listed above (mostly corroboration by official sources, including those hired by MCPS) because I think the "Robbins is biased" posters are doing the same obfuscation as the "One victim sent nudes" posters.

With that said, there's a lot of misunderstanding here about how anonymous sources work.

First, we're dealing with a school district that locked one of their own compliance officers out of the system when he filed a politically damaging report. So we know this is a team willing to engage in retaliation.

Second, MCPS is a unique employer in that they are the only game in town if you want to teach in a public school in the entire county. Sure, you could move to DCPS or NoVa, but you would lose tens of thousands of dollars per year in salary depending on how they count your experience, and potentially hundreds of thousands in pensions.

Third, anonymous sources are anonymous to the readers, but not to the journalist or (crucially) their editors. At the Washington Post, every claim made by an unnamed source needs to be shown to an editor, and it must also be corroborated by another source.

All of this is to say that while the extensive use of unnamed sources in the reporting is unusual, the exact circumstances make sense. You have a demonstratedly vindictive employer, operating a functional monopoly on employment, and you have safeguards to ensure that others within the publication are triple-checking the reporting.

Basically, of all the things we should be arguing about, this is not one of them.

/journalist, but not Robbins

[Anonymous]

“Even teachers who left Farquhar are scared of him to this day,” said former Farquhar media assistant Cathy Stanton, who departed MCPS in 2021 because of what she called the school’s “toxic leadership.”

Farquhar history teacher Miya Page said that while she was aware of his bullying, she did not personally experience it.

“He was a tyrant who tried to force himself on people, whether emotionally, sexually or professionally,” said Ben Israel, the teachers union (MCEA) representative assigned to Farquhar during the 2022-2023 school year. “He was doing very bad things to people.”

Beidleman had a habit of calling girls into his office, recalled former Farquhar science teacher Meghan Maloney, who witnessed it and heard him repeat back their stories on many occasions. “He would ask them questions not just about what they were wearing, but things about other students,” she said. Parent Jenni Coopersmith was so concerned about Beidleman’s frequent “interrogation” of her daughter in 2017 that she hired a lawyer to meet with the principal, according to Coopersmith and emails obtained by The Post.

Michelle Sauer, a student teacher at the time, was “so disgusted by his comments, I slapped my hands down on the table out of shock,” she said. “I looked around at this room full of young, impressionable girls and primarily female teachers trying to maintain composure while the principal’s being so disrespectful and sexist.”

Joann Mirgon-Erb, chairperson of that year’s MCPS symposium for 250 high-schoolers who’d expressed interest in becoming educators, heard about Beidleman’s comments. She decided he shouldn’t be allowed to deliver a speech to the group. “This person should not be exposed to students,” she said in an interview.

“He was always commenting on what people look like,” Maloney recalled. “And the opposite: He’d say, ‘Are you okay, because you don’t look your best?’ ‘Are you okay, because you didn’t put on makeup?’”

“There’s a real fear that there’s no one above you that you can go to,” said Jeanne Cashin, a 30-year teaching veteran who said she left Farquhar in June 2021 because of the toxic environment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/11/joel-beidleman-montgomery-county-principal/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, I'm somewhat reluctant to engage with the discourse about the reporting for all of the reasons listed above (mostly corroboration by official sources, including those hired by MCPS) because I think the "Robbins is biased" posters are doing the same obfuscation as the "One victim sent nudes" posters.

With that said, there's a lot of misunderstanding here about how anonymous sources work.

First, we're dealing with a school district that locked one of their own compliance officers out of the system when he filed a politically damaging report. So we know this is a team willing to engage in retaliation.

Second, MCPS is a unique employer in that they are the only game in town if you want to teach in a public school in the entire county. Sure, you could move to DCPS or NoVa, but you would lose tens of thousands of dollars per year in salary depending on how they count your experience, and potentially hundreds of thousands in pensions.

Third, anonymous sources are anonymous to the readers, but not to the journalist or (crucially) their editors. At the Washington Post, every claim made by an unnamed source needs to be shown to an editor, and it must also be corroborated by another source.

All of this is to say that while the extensive use of unnamed sources in the reporting is unusual, the exact circumstances make sense. You have a demonstratedly vindictive employer, operating a functional monopoly on employment, and you have safeguards to ensure that others within the publication are triple-checking the reporting.

Basically, of all the things we should be arguing about, this is not one of them.

/journalist, but not Robbins

+1 also there were several named sources in the August 11 article and to say that they don't exist is incredibly disgusting given the risks they took to speak to Robbins

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

“Even teachers who left Farquhar are scared of him to this day,” said former Farquhar media assistant Cathy Stanton, who departed MCPS in 2021 because of what she called the school’s “toxic leadership.”

Farquhar history teacher Miya Page said that while she was aware of his bullying, she did not personally experience it.

“He was a tyrant who tried to force himself on people, whether emotionally, sexually or professionally,” said Ben Israel, the teachers union (MCEA) representative assigned to Farquhar during the 2022-2023 school year. “He was doing very bad things to people.”

Beidleman had a habit of calling girls into his office, recalled former Farquhar science teacher Meghan Maloney, who witnessed it and heard him repeat back their stories on many occasions. “He would ask them questions not just about what they were wearing, but things about other students,” she said. Parent Jenni Coopersmith was so concerned about Beidleman’s frequent “interrogation” of her daughter in 2017 that she hired a lawyer to meet with the principal, according to Coopersmith and emails obtained by The Post.

Michelle Sauer, a student teacher at the time, was “so disgusted by his comments, I slapped my hands down on the table out of shock,” she said. “I looked around at this room full of young, impressionable girls and primarily female teachers trying to maintain composure while the principal’s being so disrespectful and sexist.”

Joann Mirgon-Erb, chairperson of that year’s MCPS symposium for 250 high-schoolers who’d expressed interest in becoming educators, heard about Beidleman’s comments. She decided he shouldn’t be allowed to deliver a speech to the group. “This person should not be exposed to students,” she said in an interview.

“He was always commenting on what people look like,” Maloney recalled. “And the opposite: He’d say, ‘Are you okay, because you don’t look your best?’ ‘Are you okay, because you didn’t put on makeup?’”

“There’s a real fear that there’s no one above you that you can go to,” said Jeanne Cashin, a 30-year teaching veteran who said she left Farquhar in June 2021 because of the toxic environment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/11/joel-beidleman-montgomery-county-principal/

If these are the facts against him, then this is basically a witchhunt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

“Even teachers who left Farquhar are scared of him to this day,” said former Farquhar media assistant Cathy Stanton, who departed MCPS in 2021 because of what she called the school’s “toxic leadership.”

Farquhar history teacher Miya Page said that while she was aware of his bullying, she did not personally experience it.

“He was a tyrant who tried to force himself on people, whether emotionally, sexually or professionally,” said Ben Israel, the teachers union (MCEA) representative assigned to Farquhar during the 2022-2023 school year. “He was doing very bad things to people.”

Beidleman had a habit of calling girls into his office, recalled former Farquhar science teacher Meghan Maloney, who witnessed it and heard him repeat back their stories on many occasions. “He would ask them questions not just about what they were wearing, but things about other students,” she said. Parent Jenni Coopersmith was so concerned about Beidleman’s frequent “interrogation” of her daughter in 2017 that she hired a lawyer to meet with the principal, according to Coopersmith and emails obtained by The Post.

Michelle Sauer, a student teacher at the time, was “so disgusted by his comments, I slapped my hands down on the table out of shock,” she said. “I looked around at this room full of young, impressionable girls and primarily female teachers trying to maintain composure while the principal’s being so disrespectful and sexist.”

Joann Mirgon-Erb, chairperson of that year’s MCPS symposium for 250 high-schoolers who’d expressed interest in becoming educators, heard about Beidleman’s comments. She decided he shouldn’t be allowed to deliver a speech to the group. “This person should not be exposed to students,” she said in an interview.

“He was always commenting on what people look like,” Maloney recalled. “And the opposite: He’d say, ‘Are you okay, because you don’t look your best?’ ‘Are you okay, because you didn’t put on makeup?’”

“There’s a real fear that there’s no one above you that you can go to,” said Jeanne Cashin, a 30-year teaching veteran who said she left Farquhar in June 2021 because of the toxic environment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/11/joel-beidleman-montgomery-county-principal/

If these are the facts against him, then this is basically a witchhunt.

In other words you don't believe multiple women describing similar behavior

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

“Even teachers who left Farquhar are scared of him to this day,” said former Farquhar media assistant Cathy Stanton, who departed MCPS in 2021 because of what she called the school’s “toxic leadership.”

Farquhar history teacher Miya Page said that while she was aware of his bullying, she did not personally experience it.

“He was a tyrant who tried to force himself on people, whether emotionally, sexually or professionally,” said Ben Israel, the teachers union (MCEA) representative assigned to Farquhar during the 2022-2023 school year. “He was doing very bad things to people.”

Beidleman had a habit of calling girls into his office, recalled former Farquhar science teacher Meghan Maloney, who witnessed it and heard him repeat back their stories on many occasions. “He would ask them questions not just about what they were wearing, but things about other students,” she said. Parent Jenni Coopersmith was so concerned about Beidleman’s frequent “interrogation” of her daughter in 2017 that she hired a lawyer to meet with the principal, according to Coopersmith and emails obtained by The Post.

Michelle Sauer, a student teacher at the time, was “so disgusted by his comments, I slapped my hands down on the table out of shock,” she said. “I looked around at this room full of young, impressionable girls and primarily female teachers trying to maintain composure while the principal’s being so disrespectful and sexist.”

Joann Mirgon-Erb, chairperson of that year’s MCPS symposium for 250 high-schoolers who’d expressed interest in becoming educators, heard about Beidleman’s comments. She decided he shouldn’t be allowed to deliver a speech to the group. “This person should not be exposed to students,” she said in an interview.

“He was always commenting on what people look like,” Maloney recalled. “And the opposite: He’d say, ‘Are you okay, because you don’t look your best?’ ‘Are you okay, because you didn’t put on makeup?’”

“There’s a real fear that there’s no one above you that you can go to,” said Jeanne Cashin, a 30-year teaching veteran who said she left Farquhar in June 2021 because of the toxic environment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/11/joel-beidleman-montgomery-county-principal/

If these are the facts against him, then this is basically a witchhunt.

Not

Even the NAACP president said MCPS has been known for years to have a problem with sexual harassment not being taken seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And maybe will continue, or maybe it won't. Or perhaps something in-between.

To review, with regards to the Biedelman scandal, Robbins has provided very detailed and well sourced reporting that was verified by two different entities including the school district's own law firm. It sounds like you are trying to smear her name - what personal interest do you have in this? Since you are so concerned with ethics, tell us who you are and what connection you have to the people involved in the scandal.

I take it you don't remember her aligning herself with PAGES during the covid era?

What does that even mean?

She joined a fringe group of parents and teachers that protested the reopening of schools, advocated for an illegal teachers' strike, and encouraged teachers to lie to disrupt reopening. Robbins has never been a fan of McKnight.

You know nothing about the group. You are just smearing people. The group worked to advocate for safe reopenings, help teachers find vaccines, etc.

That group did and said horrible things about families that were truly struggling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And maybe will continue, or maybe it won't. Or perhaps something in-between.

To review, with regards to the Biedelman scandal, Robbins has provided very detailed and well sourced reporting that was verified by two different entities including the school district's own law firm. It sounds like you are trying to smear her name - what personal interest do you have in this? Since you are so concerned with ethics, tell us who you are and what connection you have to the people involved in the scandal.

I take it you don't remember her aligning herself with PAGES during the covid era?

What does that even mean?

She joined a fringe group of parents and teachers that protested the reopening of schools, advocated for an illegal teachers' strike, and encouraged teachers to lie to disrupt reopening. Robbins has never been a fan of McKnight.

You know nothing about the group. You are just smearing people. The group worked to advocate for safe reopenings, help teachers find vaccines, etc.

That group did and said horrible things about families that were truly struggling.

Therefore, MCPS and Biedelman are innocent! Make it make sense.

[Anonymous]

I would say harassment in general. If powers that be are harrassing teachers and threatening jobs to get data to be manipulated it still is stressful and demoralizing for the teacher victims.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel Monifa has to go. What credibility does she have left to lead with. If she insists on staying, she will be a lame duck and absolutely nothing will get done

You're going to have to show her the money, then. She's not going to voluntarily resign without a payout.

I’m having trouble understanding why Monifa went proactively to the press with the accusation that the board wants her out. Why stir up more public drama? Isn’t that the last thing MCPS needs? Is she just looking for a payout? Because you cannot effectively lead once you have aired your dirty laundry in public

Her reputation has been as a mean girl bully and through this move unfortunately lives down to that reputation. Because she’s clearly trying to bully the Board when the proper move would have been to privately negotiate the terms of her exit, including severance and statements. Particularly if she was so concerned about her “reputation”. After doing that, there is not a school district in their right minds that would hire her and sadly for us, Dr. Monifa McKnight is a product of the MCPS work environment. There is a very, very serious institutional culture and accountability problem there that clearly needs to be fixed.

She doesn't come off as a bully in this newest debacle so much as she comes off as incompetent and tone deaf.
Beidleman was a huge deal. Her role in it even bigger. To shrug up her shoulders and pretend she don't know nothin is extremely unprofessional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, I'm somewhat reluctant to engage with the discourse about the reporting for all of the reasons listed above (mostly corroboration by official sources, including those hired by MCPS) because I think the "Robbins is biased" posters are doing the same obfuscation as the "One victim sent nudes" posters.

With that said, there's a lot of misunderstanding here about how anonymous sources work.

First, we're dealing with a school district that locked one of their own compliance officers out of the system when he filed a politically damaging report. So we know this is a team willing to engage in retaliation.

Second, MCPS is a unique employer in that they are the only game in town if you want to teach in a public school in the entire county. Sure, you could move to DCPS or NoVa, but you would lose tens of thousands of dollars per year in salary depending on how they count your experience, and potentially hundreds of thousands in pensions.

Third, anonymous sources are anonymous to the readers, but not to the journalist or (crucially) their editors. At the Washington Post, every claim made by an unnamed source needs to be shown to an editor, and it must also be corroborated by another source.

All of this is to say that while the extensive use of unnamed sources in the reporting is unusual, the exact circumstances make sense. You have a demonstratedly vindictive employer, operating a functional monopoly on employment, and you have safeguards to ensure that others within the publication are triple-checking the reporting.

Basically, of all the things we should be arguing about, this is not one of them.

/journalist, but not Robbins

That makes sense for current employees. But the fact that she can't get a single *former* employee to speak on-the-record is even more usual. That doesn't necessarily mean anything is false, but does impact the credibility of the overall story.

The real risk isn't that individual reported facts are necessarily wrong. As you said, hopefully things are being corroborated to avoid blatant falsehoods. But without knowing the sources, there's no way to confirm that the *characterizations* of those interviews are accurate in her articles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I'm somewhat reluctant to engage with the discourse about the reporting for all of the reasons listed above (mostly corroboration by official sources, including those hired by MCPS) because I think the "Robbins is biased" posters are doing the same obfuscation as the "One victim sent nudes" posters.

With that said, there's a lot of misunderstanding here about how anonymous sources work.

First, we're dealing with a school district that locked one of their own compliance officers out of the system when he filed a politically damaging report. So we know this is a team willing to engage in retaliation.

Second, MCPS is a unique employer in that they are the only game in town if you want to teach in a public school in the entire county. Sure, you could move to DCPS or NoVa, but you would lose tens of thousands of dollars per year in salary depending on how they count your experience, and potentially hundreds of thousands in pensions.

Third, anonymous sources are anonymous to the readers, but not to the journalist or (crucially) their editors. At the Washington Post, every claim made by an unnamed source needs to be shown to an editor, and it must also be corroborated by another source.

All of this is to say that while the extensive use of unnamed sources in the reporting is unusual, the exact circumstances make sense. You have a demonstratedly vindictive employer, operating a functional monopoly on employment, and you have safeguards to ensure that others within the publication are triple-checking the reporting.

Basically, of all the things we should be arguing about, this is not one of them.

/journalist, but not Robbins

That makes sense for current employees. But the fact that she can't get a single *former* employee to speak on-the-record is even more usual. That doesn't necessarily mean anything is false, but does impact the credibility of the overall story.

The real risk isn't that individual reported facts are necessarily wrong. As you said, hopefully things are being corroborated to avoid blatant falsehoods. But without knowing the sources, there's no way to confirm that the *characterizations* of those interviews are accurate in her articles.

She got multiple former employees to speak on the record for the August 11 article. Did you not read it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And maybe will continue, or maybe it won't. Or perhaps something in-between.

To review, with regards to the Biedelman scandal, Robbins has provided very detailed and well sourced reporting that was verified by two different entities including the school district's own law firm. It sounds like you are trying to smear her name - what personal interest do you have in this? Since you are so concerned with ethics, tell us who you are and what connection you have to the people involved in the scandal.

I take it you don't remember her aligning herself with PAGES during the covid era?

What does that even mean?

She joined a fringe group of parents and teachers that protested the reopening of schools, advocated for an illegal teachers' strike, and encouraged teachers to lie to disrupt reopening. Robbins has never been a fan of McKnight.

You know nothing about the group. You are just smearing people. The group worked to advocate for safe reopenings, help teachers find vaccines, etc.

That group did and said horrible things about families that were truly struggling.

Therefore, MCPS and Biedelman are innocent! Make it make sense.

It doesn't mean that all. It just means you should be careful when reading articles built on mostly unnamed sources when they're written by someone with that history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And maybe will continue, or maybe it won't. Or perhaps something in-between.

To review, with regards to the Biedelman scandal, Robbins has provided very detailed and well sourced reporting that was verified by two different entities including the school district's own law firm. It sounds like you are trying to smear her name - what personal interest do you have in this? Since you are so concerned with ethics, tell us who you are and what connection you have to the people involved in the scandal.

I take it you don't remember her aligning herself with PAGES during the covid era?

What does that even mean?

She joined a fringe group of parents and teachers that protested the reopening of schools, advocated for an illegal teachers' strike, and encouraged teachers to lie to disrupt reopening. Robbins has never been a fan of McKnight.

You know nothing about the group. You are just smearing people. The group worked to advocate for safe reopenings, help teachers find vaccines, etc.

That group did and said horrible things about families that were truly struggling.

Therefore, MCPS and Biedelman are innocent! Make it make sense.

It doesn't mean that all. It just means you should be careful when reading articles built on mostly unnamed sources when they're written by someone with that history.

Talk about gossip and innuendo lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I'm somewhat reluctant to engage with the discourse about the reporting for all of the reasons listed above (mostly corroboration by official sources, including those hired by MCPS) because I think the "Robbins is biased" posters are doing the same obfuscation as the "One victim sent nudes" posters.

With that said, there's a lot of misunderstanding here about how anonymous sources work.

First, we're dealing with a school district that locked one of their own compliance officers out of the system when he filed a politically damaging report. So we know this is a team willing to engage in retaliation.

Second, MCPS is a unique employer in that they are the only game in town if you want to teach in a public school in the entire county. Sure, you could move to DCPS or NoVa, but you would lose tens of thousands of dollars per year in salary depending on how they count your experience, and potentially hundreds of thousands in pensions.

Third, anonymous sources are anonymous to the readers, but not to the journalist or (crucially) their editors. At the Washington Post, every claim made by an unnamed source needs to be shown to an editor, and it must also be corroborated by another source.

All of this is to say that while the extensive use of unnamed sources in the reporting is unusual, the exact circumstances make sense. You have a demonstratedly vindictive employer, operating a functional monopoly on employment, and you have safeguards to ensure that others within the publication are triple-checking the reporting.

Basically, of all the things we should be arguing about, this is not one of them.

/journalist, but not Robbins

That makes sense for current employees. But the fact that she can't get a single *former* employee to speak on-the-record is even more usual. That doesn't necessarily mean anything is false, but does impact the credibility of the overall story.

The real risk isn't that individual reported facts are necessarily wrong. As you said, hopefully things are being corroborated to avoid blatant falsehoods. But without knowing the sources, there's no way to confirm that the *characterizations* of those interviews are accurate in her articles.

That is literally the job of her editors. Unless you have a substantiated reason to question that Alexandra’s editors failed at their job, you raising these “questions” is not in good faith. Clearly you have a vested interest in raising doubts about the veracity of her reporting.

Why is that? On whose behalf are you doing this and why?