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Investigators “found significant and troubling failures by senior management” in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) when the district promoted a principal under investigation for allegedly harassing teachers, according to a letter to county leaders released Thursday by board of education President Karla Silvestre.
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The letter accompanied a summary of the report by Jackson Lewis, the law firm hired by the school district after a Washington Post story documented years of sexual harassment, bullying and retaliation complaints against former Farquhar Middle School principal Joel Beidleman.
The law firm found that MCPS appointed Beidleman in June to run a high school although “multiple” administrators involved in the decision “knew that Dr. Beidleman was under an active investigation.” The firm said “key decision-makers did not exercise enough diligence” to learn about the allegations against him. (After The Post submitted a list of questions about Beidleman in August, the district placed him on leave.)
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The report also found that although the district received many informal complaints against Beidleman, it investigated only the claims of misconduct filed to the central office on a specific form and ignored the rest. The Post reported that MCPS received at least 18 complaints of sexual harassment, bullying and retaliation about Beidleman since 2016 but that only a few arrived on the correct paperwork to merit close scrutiny by central office officials.
The board of education said it had asked investigators to look into: “1) whether senior MCPS personnel received or were aware of complaints prior to the promotion; 2) whether any such complaints were appropriately investigated; 3) what, if any, actions MCPS took in response to those complaints; and 4) whether those complaints affected the promotion process.”
Officials did not say Friday how Jackson Lewis had answered those questions. But in a statement, Superintendent Monifa B. McKnight said: “In the coming days I’ll be announcing a series of swift and immediate actions I’ll be prepared to take to ensure accountability. I will also be working closely with my team to develop a comprehensive corrective action plan, as directed by the Board.”
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Silvestre described the report from Jackson Lewis as a “comprehensive, well documented report” but did not share more details about its length or contents. She did not answer further questions from The Washington Post, including those asking which officials had what information and when; whether any administrators would be disciplined; and how Montgomery County families could be certain that the proper officials would be held accountable if the board would not disclose their identities.
The school system referred questions back to the school board.
Many teachers said a principal sexually harassed them. He was promoted.
Khalid Walker, an MCPS investigator who had looked into allegations of misconduct by Beidleman and cleared him of wrongdoing, did not reply to a message seeking comment. Neither did Beidleman or elected leaders of the board of education.
According to documents obtained by The Post and interviews with more than 60 educators across MCPS, Beidleman was renowned 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 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.
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The board of education said in August that it would release information from Jackson Lewis’s report, which members received in full last week. But in her Thursday letter attached to a four-page summary of the results, Silvestre said the Maryland Public Information Act prevented “the Board from releasing the confidential personnel information contained” inside.
Jackson Lewis was first commissioned to study institutional failures and, later, the specific Title IX allegations of misconduct against Beidleman from teachers and parents in the schools he ran. But the board of education later said it would ask government inspectors general to conduct the second phase of the investigation. On Thursday, the board said it sent Jackson Lewis’s full report to the Montgomery County inspector general and the Maryland inspector general for education. The county watchdog confirmed receipt of the report and said it was reviewing its contents. The Maryland inspector general for education did not reply to questions from The Post but generally has said he cannot confirm or deny the existence of an investigation. The board did not respond to a question about whether Jackson Lewis will continue to investigate.
The Jackson Lewis report cited several other MCPS failures, according to the summary. It said that after Beidleman’s promotion, “key MCPS leaders failed to take any remedial action” once they learned about the seriousness of an internal investigation into his conduct. “Key members of MCPS leadership” became aware of those details “by July 19, 2023,” it said. On that day, The Post asked MCPS for copies of Beidleman’s employment contracts over the years.
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School district officials told the board nothing about the claims against Beidleman, even as it considered and approved his appointment to run Paint Branch High School in Burtonsville, Md., this year, according to the report’s summary.
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The summary was particularly brutal in its commentary on what claims the district chose to investigate. It said officials looked into “all formal complaints.” But, it added, “MCPS has long-standing practices and processes in place that resulted in anonymous and informal complaints” being ignored. It did not interview witnesses, interview the accused or render “a written determination pursuant to its policies” in response to “any of the multiple relevant anonymous complaints that it received. Many of those anonymous complaints contained sufficient details to enable MCPS to initiate a formal investigation.”
The report also concluded that MCPS did not look into “informal complaints that were brought to it by witnesses that were interviewed in connection with a relevant formal complaint.” The Post’s initial story disclosed that then-Director of School Support and Improvement Eric Minus, Beidleman’s boss, contacted Farquhar teachers about reports that Beidleman had called middle school students “hos and thots” (derogatory terms for supposedly promiscuous women) at two assemblies in 2018. When teachers tried to tell him about other misconduct, they said Minus waved them off and asked to stick to the question at hand.
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The Jackson Lewis summary explained that to initiate a formal investigation of discrimination, harassment or bullying, the complainant must “complete a Form 230-39, contact the Department of Compliance and Investigations directly by email or contact their principal or supervisor.”
But two teachers said that when they asked Department of Compliance and Investigations coordinator Khalid Walker in 2023 about filing the proper form to report Beidleman’s alleged misconduct, Walker dissuaded them from doing so and did not provide them with Form 230-39. A third educator said that Walker ignored her request for the form when she told him she wanted to submit a formal complaint about Beidleman’s bullying and retaliation. The educators spoke on the condition of anonymity because they fear retribution from the school system. (MCPS did not answer a question about Walker’s employment status, but he had an out-of-office message up Friday with a listed return date of Aug. 29, nearly three weeks ago.)
Teachers, legal scholars question independence of firm probing MCPS
The Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), the teachers union, said in a statement that it, too, had raised concerns that went unheeded by the Department of Compliance. “Jackson Lewis uncovered 30,000+ documents,” it said, “but somehow could not find emails sent by MCEA members and staff to the Board of Education, MCPS, and Superintendent [Monifa B.] McKnight outlining the harassment claims.” MCEA’s statement expressed outrage over “how extensive the cover-ups, negligence, and abuses of power were.” It added, “A vicious cycle went unchecked, allowing this rampant abuse to continue.”
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Post reporters found that 15 of the 18 complaints about Beidleman’s alleged sexual harassment, bullying and retaliation reported to MCPS officials since 2016 were not anonymous, raising questions about how “informal” they truly were. Seven were shared directly with the Department of Compliance and Investigations. The two that resulted in probes were dismissed.
Jackson Lewis further found that “MCPS’ promotion process does not have a mechanism to automatically identify whether a candidate for a promotion or a transfer is under investigation.” The district did not answer questions from The Post last month about how the school district’s central office identifies and vets candidates for promotion, and about who is involved in those decisions. Eventually the board of education votes on the choices.
The report did not recommend a course of action for the school system but said its findings could be used to make “a comprehensive corrective action plan.” Jackson Lewis said it conducted “over 59” interviews of 30 current and former MCPS employees and school board members. It also collected more than 30,000 documents from MCPS email accounts and text messages from 10 MCPS cellphones, according to the summary.
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Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich, who said he had not seen the full report, said, “The MCPS staff, families, and the entire community deserve transparency, accountability, and a better process.”
Local educators had previously questioned whether Jackson Lewis could properly ascribe blame to MCPS leaders because it had represented the district in other proceedings. On Friday, Moco360 obtained that the firm’s contract, which tasks it to “represent the Board.” District and firm officials did not immediately respond to questions Friday about Jackson Lewis’s independence and any conflicts that might arise in criticizing the people who had hired it.
Farquhar teachers, who were at work preparing for back-to-school night when the summary was released, remained incredulous about Beidleman’s promotion. “How do they not know of what was a multi-month investigation into one of their leaders sexually harassing their staff?” wondered a Farquhar teacher who, because of a fear of retaliation, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe personal matters. “MCPS is deeply flawed, and the board seems to have no idea what’s going on inside their house.”
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