Board wants Monifa to step down

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

+1 Not to mention the PP is lying because Robbins DID get multiple former employees on the record and published their names in the August 11 article

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

+1 I think PP is either affiliated with Dr. McKnight or with JB. There's a certain trend on these threads, and some similarities in terms of the phrasing that makes me think the same person is trying to muddy the waters by impugning the victims, the journalist, etc. It's also interesting to note that only women's motivations are being brought into question (leading me to believe someone affiliated with JB is behind this).

I'd ask my fellow MCPS parents to keep our eyes on the prize and ask the BoE to do so as well. Key questions remaining include:

1) Did Dr. McKnight know about the allegations against JB when she recommended him for promotion?

2) If not, did she find out before the promotion was final?

3) Was she involved in the decision to suppress the Walker original report and backdate the rewritten report? If she was not involved, was she aware?

4) Did she lie either by omission or commission to the Board of Education?

5) To take a step back, why did she not reform the relevant offices at the time of earlier reports on their failures and the failure of MCPS to follow its own policies.

[Anonymous]

It was obvious to me from the August 11 article that McKnight was aware of what was happening. MCPS had a problem - the teachers at a middle school were angry and leaving en masse. They needed to fix the problem. They decided to move Biedelman to another school to placate the Farquhar teachers. No way McKnight didn't know that's why she was recommending his promotion.

Since then, we've learned that McKnight failed to tell the board of the WaPo investigation, and also that at the time of his promotion she knew there were concerns "swirling around" about him yet she promoted him without asking questions. She knew exactly what she was doing and knew not to ask too much so she could say she didn't know about the investigation underway by the perennially incompetent office that responds to complaints.

[Anonymous]

They were aware. How do I know this? Because the district had already warned Dr. Biedleman about his behavior months before the story actually broke. You read that right: months. After that, people were frustrated because it appeared that he had gotten nothing more than a slap on the wrist. And it was basically an open secret on the gossip grapevine. So, if random unconnected MCPS employees were hearing this long before the WaPo article, then central office, and by extension, McKnight knew.

[Anonymous]

Hell, I heard it from multiple Farquhar employees, some transferring, some retiring, well before the article dropped. It was a hostile work environment, particularly for women.

[Anonymous]

And people were scared. Think about it: central office was essentially ignoring his behavior, allowing him to further harass and abuse employees, why would anyone think that going public wouldn't result in retaliation? These are people with families and bills to pay, after all, with the risk of losing your paycheck or your mental health . . .

[Anonymous]

Maybe his divorce caused the hostile environment. Quite often personal issues can have an affect on your professional life. Not an excuse but I hear she took him to the cleaners.

[Anonymous]

Write to the Board, [e-mail]
Demand answers
Demand action
Follow what the Board does
Question promotion practices
Stick with it until they have answered

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe his divorce caused the hostile environment. Quite often personal issues can have an affect on your professional life. Not an excuse but I hear she took him to the cleaners.

Hmmm I wonder if the divorce was at all related to him being a horrible human being.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe his divorce caused the hostile environment. Quite often personal issues can have an affect on your professional life. Not an excuse but I hear she took him to the cleaners.

I literally do not care at all about this, and it is not pertinent.

The bottom line is the guy engaged in sexual harassment on dozens (hundreds?) of occasions. So excuse me for not caring if his personal divorce had anything to do with that.

Another classic diversion post.

[Anonymous]

Were there other misconducts related to Admins promoted in Farquhar school? Our horrible MS Principal used to work in Farquhar school as an Assistant Principal under Biederman . She was prompted to be middle school principal although she is terrible match and I’m afraid her appointment is related to this scandal. How would I know that this is not related to the Biederman scandal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Were there other misconducts related to Admins promoted in Farquhar school? Our horrible MS Principal used to work in Farquhar school as an Assistant Principal under Biederman . She was prompted to be middle school principal although she is terrible match and I’m afraid her appointment is related to this scandal. How would I know that this is not related to the Biederman scandal?

Tilden?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Were there other misconducts related to Admins promoted in Farquhar school? Our horrible MS Principal used to work in Farquhar school as an Assistant Principal under Biederman . She was prompted to be middle school principal although she is terrible match and I’m afraid her appointment is related to this scandal. How would I know that this is not related to the Biederman scandal?

Tilden?

How can it not be related?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Were there other misconducts related to Admins promoted in Farquhar school? Our horrible MS Principal used to work in Farquhar school as an Assistant Principal under Biederman . She was prompted to be middle school principal although she is terrible match and I’m afraid her appointment is related to this scandal. How would I know that this is not related to the Biederman scandal?

Tilden?

How can it not be related?

Unless you have specific claims to report, I do not think it's fair or warranted to be suspicious of anyone who may have worked at Farquhar during Beidelman's tenure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe his divorce caused the hostile environment. Quite often personal issues can have an affect on your professional life. Not an excuse but I hear she took him to the cleaners.

I literally do not care at all about this, and it is not pertinent.

The bottom line is the guy engaged in sexual harassment on dozens (hundreds?) of occasions. So excuse me for not caring if his personal divorce had anything to do with that.

Another classic diversion post.

The evidence at least that's presented in the WaPo doesn't make that clear at all.