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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/potential-conflict-of-interest-derails-curriculum-rollout-in-md-school-system/2018/05/25/d28c96c2-5e9f-11e8-9ee3-49d6d4814c4c_story.html?utm_term=.1e96b4f5ab8c

WP’s article on the Discovery issue [/quote]
No. Titling this a “potential conflict of interest” instead of a conflict of interest is the first clue that this article is a soft marshallow instead of dispassionate reporting. How Discovery or Lang or Fliakas can claim that all this just caught them by surprise (oh my!) and that as soon as they “realized” they rushed to report it is flatly unbelievable. If you are involved in public procurement, you just don’t go around marketing yourself to private vendors and then get religion the day you get a job offer. You just don’t do that and call it ethical. Lang may be a very personable guy, but this isn’t ethical behavior. There are plenty of personable and friendly people who lack ethical judgement. Dixon is right. There should be some very clear laws about this in MCPS.[/quote]

[b]MCPS already has very well-defined conflict of interest rules.[/b] The very first part of these rules says, very specifically, that employees are supposed to know these rules! For these two veteran staffers to suggest that they were somehow unaware of the ethical thin ice on which they were treading is simply, and literally, unbelievable.

Besides being recused from the now-delayed bidding process, did these guys face ANY consequences for their costly “mistake”? The story doesn’t answer that. In fact, the story mentions nothing about an actual investigation into this and the elected school board is AWOL. MCPS eats up about half of the county budget. It’s time for an independent Inspector General to have some oversight. Clearly, MCPS can’t police itself and the BOE either doesn’t care or lacks the capacity to really ride herd. I’m also starting to get a sinking feeling about Smith. He may be in way over his head and he doesn’t exactly have a squeaky clean history from his previous superintendent job.[/quote]

Could you please post a quote or link?
Also, what do you mean about Smith’s history? Pulling the RFP seemed like a tough but honest call, although I do worry that Central Office seems to be trying rather hard to protect Discovery Ed.[/quote]

From MCPS Conflict of Interest Regs

“MCPS employees are expected to be knowledgeable about and conduct themselves in accordance with” the conflict of interest reg and are supposed to make sure their behavior is consistent with the reg’s policies and procedures.
It‘s a conflict of interest  to take advantage of relationships with those doing business with the school system for personal benefit. Employees shouldn’t use their position, and/or confidential or proprietary information they get while doing their job “for personal benefit.”
If an employee isn’t sure about whether they face a conflict of interest they’re “encouraged” to disclose potential conflicts in advance or get “prior guidance” concerning conduct which is a concern.
To avoid conflicts of interest, MCPS employees are supposed to recuse themselves “from participating in any procurement decision, selection, or other decision-making process” if they think they might personally benefit, because of the information they get as part of their job.
An alleged violation of “is cause for an immediate investigation by the chief operating officer/designee.” If an employee violates the reg, she/he can be disciplined, “including reprimand, suspension, or termination, in accordance with applicable laws....”

As for Dr. Smith, here is a snippet from somdnews.com., dated March 14, 2014. (Sorry, no link to original story.)
“Dr. Smith has created a major hole in the Calvert County community by his manipulation of weak minded board of education members back in 2010 that allowed him and his top staff to give him the ability to cash in leave and also have the school system pay his 403B and health benefits for life.”[/quote]

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