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Montgomery County’s inspector general will investigate the school system’s handling of misconduct complaints related to a middle school principal, according to a letter sent to the school board president Wednesday.
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County Inspector General Megan Davey Limarzi said her office will open two inquiries: The first will scrutinize the school district’s handling of misconduct complaints against school system employees, and the second will look into all allegations of misconduct by former Farquhar Middle School principal Joel Beidleman received by July 2023 and any previous allegations that were not investigated.
The Washington Post reported in August that at least 18 verbal or written reports were submitted to the school district about Beidleman by staff members, parents and union stewards dating back to 2016. The complaints alleged a pattern of harassment, threats, retaliation, workplace bullying and other inappropriate conduct.
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Despite the number of reports, Beidleman was promoted to be principal of Paint Branch High School in Burtonsville — a position that raised his salary by about $32,000, to $191,000. Montgomery County Public Schools placed Beidleman on administrative leave in August after The Post sent it a list of questions about the claims against him.
Beidleman did not immediately respond to questions Thursday. He has previously denied many of the allegations of misconduct.
The school system — Maryland’s largest, with about 160,000 students — hired Baltimore-based law firm Jackson Lewis to investigate the findings in The Post’s report. But legal scholars and teachers questioned its independence, because the firm represented the district in other legal matters and was engaged to defend the system, not necessarily root out wrongdoing. County Council members argued that inspectors general, either for the state or the county, should take over the investigation because they are more independent.
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The law firm filed a report last week that “found significant and troubling failures by senior management” during the first phase of its inquiry. Karla Silvestre, the school board president, did not respond to questions about whether Jackson Lewis would continue the second phase of its investigation, which would examine the allegations of misconduct by Beidleman. Asked in August if the board would continue to employ Jackson Lewis if an inspector general opened their own investigation, she told The Post, “Concurrent investigations are duplicative and burdensome, so the Board would not want that.” MCPS has referred questions to the school board.
Limarzi said her first inquiry will assess whether the school district has “effective procedures for the receipt, assignment, investigation, referral, resolution, documentation and retention of all allegations of misconduct by its employees.” Jackson Lewis had found the school system received many informal complaints but investigated only those complaints filed to the central office on a specific form. Limarzi said that the office will review records and interview staff members during the course of its investigation.
Maryland Inspector General for Education Richard Henry said his office will refer an investigation to the county watchdog, rather than conducting its own inquiry. In a separate letter addressed to Silvestre obtained by The Post, Henry wrote that his office wasn’t the proper authority to investigate violations of Title IX, a federal law that bars gender-based discrimination. He also wrote that his office previously “engaged MCPS regarding these matters,” and those interactions are outlined in the report by Jackson Lewis. As such, his team would be prohibited from investigating further to “ensure that no potential bias would exist.” The county inspector general’s investigation “would ensure public trust,” he said.
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The Montgomery County Board of Education has not made public the full contents of the Jackson Lewis investigation and would not answer further questions about its contents beyond a four-page summary it posted online last week. The summary did not name any of the officials who mishandled complaints or advocated Beidleman’s promotion while knowing about them. The school board did not answer questions about when or whether it would name or reprimand those individuals.
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Schools Superintendent Monifa B. McKnight said in a statement Thursday: “While it’s imperative that the Inspector General take the time necessary to conduct a thorough and comprehensive review, I remain eager and ready to take decisive action based on the IG’s findings — including holding anyone implicated in wrongdoing to full account, and developing an aggressive and comprehensive action plan to ensure no one is failed by the system again.”
She continued: “My team and I look forward to being fully cooperative, responsive, and supportive of the IG’s office throughout this investigation, and will take the necessary and subsequent actions to make clear that harassment, bullying, intimidation, and retaliation have absolutely no place in our communities, and especially in the MCPS community.”
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According to documents obtained by The Post and interviews with more than 60 educators across MCPS, Beidleman was known for inappropriate behavior. He targeted one social studies teacher for years, telling her in front of her peers, “You should just f--- me,” and urging her to “shave your p---- and sell the hair,” she wrote in an official complaint. He told an eighth-grade girl, according to the child’s mother: “Don’t be like [your friend]. She’s a whore.” (He denied this allegation.) He invited a former colleague to apply for a job as his assistant principal and then sent her dozens of sexually suggestive texts. When she rejected his advances, he asked, “So why cant my lips just get out on that kitty.” Nine staff members who left Farquhar this year told The Post that they quit because of Beidleman.
MCPS staff members said that, while they were leery of speaking with Jackson Lewis after its client took no action on their complaints about the principal, they would cooperate with the inspector general. “Hopefully with this actually independent investigation, those of us who went through the abuse will actually be heard, and MCPS and Beidleman will be held accountable for their actions and inactions,” said a former Farquhar teacher who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared retaliation for discussing the matter publicly. “Now there’s a sense of relief that someone in power cares and takes this seriously.”
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich (D) said he hasn’t received the full report from Jackson Lewis, nor a formal briefing from any school system leader. But he said he was disturbed by the summary of the report that was released. He said he understands that there are some personnel details in the report that can’t be disclosed publicly, but he expects the district to hold “people who failed to adequately report what they knew” publicly accountable.
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“People have a right to know what folks did and how it’s going to be handled. … But again, without a full report, I don’t know who’s sanctioned,” Elrich said during a media briefing Thursday. “I can’t judge how bad the situation was, because you don’t know who knew what and when they knew it.”
He said he didn’t blame McKnight for the processes failing, because this was a problem that she inherited. He added that the school board members needed to be more forthcoming about the report and its findings.
“I frankly don’t think these questions are too hard to answer. Nobody’s asking anybody to opine on whether someone’s guilty,” Elrich said. But he thought members should “express some kind of concern” publicly.
Robbins, a freelance journalist, is the author of several books about education, the latest of which is “The Teachers: A Year Inside America’s Most Vulnerable, Important Profession.” She has substitute-taught in Montgomery County in a different school cluster from the ones described in this article.
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