Allegations Shake Montgomery County

Published in print November 2023

By: Hannah Brooker

On Oct. 12, the Montgomery County Board of Education released a heavily redacted report that followed an investigation into the promotion of Joel Beidleman to serve as the principal of Paint Branch High School. The report detailed a series of complaints, including allegations of sexual harassment, bullying, and other forms of misconduct filed against Beidleman dating back to 2017.

Before his appointment to principal of Paint Branch High School on June 27th, 2023, Beidleman served as the principal of Farquhar Middle School. The Washington Post conducted an investigation in August revealing that MCPS had received numerous complaints about Beidleman prior to his promotion. In response, MCPS hired the law firm Jackson Lewis to initiate an independent investigation into the situation. In addition, Beidleman and MCPS are facing a lawsuit by an anonymous MCPS teacher represented by Jerry Hyatt Law. The teacher is alleging discrimination and a hostile work environment against Beildeman. Hyatt and his client declined to comment. 

The Washington Post specifically investigated a report by a social studies teacher who worked under Beidleman during his tenure at Farquhar Middle School. The Post reported, “He called her repeatedly after 3 a.m. and texted her from a hotel room in 2022 to ‘Come be with me,’ according to screenshots from her phone.” 

Along with several named allegations, numerous anonymous complaints were made against Beidleman from 2021 to 2023. Page 4 of the report revealed that "All of these anonymous complaints were received by the Department of Compliance (DCI), but none were formally investigated because DCI has a long-standing practice of not formally investigating anonymous complaints."   

Several B-CC teachers declined interview requests for this article. However, Ms. Rizas, a social studies teacher at B-CC, said, “It seems like the whole point of anonymous complaints is that you would still look into them, but it seems MCPS may have interpreted that differently.” 

Junior Mckenna Harper added to this sentiment, “An anonymous complaint process removes many of the barriers that prevent people from speaking up. So with the recent allegations against MCPS, I feel like a lot of people, teachers, and students, won’t speak up now even if they want to.”

Christopher Cram, Director of the Office of Communications for MCPS, clarified that privacy laws prevent him from discussing the specifics of who will face disciplinary actions in this matter. However, Cram said, “The Superintendent has committed to accountability for any individual responsible in this matter.” 

Although McKnight has taken responsibility, teachers and students alike have felt the negative effects of this situation. 

Rizas said, “It was pretty shocking. I think that there is a certain level of trust you put into the people running our school system and to see how broadly that trust was broken during this several year's long incident that wasn’t being addressed is pretty upsetting.”

Dr. Hogewood, head of the social studies department, emphasized that the employees in this situation who did express concern to MCPS were not protected. “It does not seem to me that the system did a very good job of following through on many of the messages they give us on how the processes are supposed to work,” said Hogewood. 

Failing to recognize Beildleman’s behavior was not the first incident of MCPS’s oversight. Melissa Curtis, a former employee at Montgomery Village Middle School in MCPS, was arrested on Nov. 7th, 2023, for engaging in a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old student back in 2015. 

Sasha Barr, a B-CC student, explained that she has learned different ways to submit an incident report to MCPS through advisory lessons at B-CC. However, Barr said, “If there was a huge incident at school, such as bullying, that I wanted to report to someone outside of B-CC, I’m not sure if it would even be listened to after this.” 

Montgomery County has assessed the situation and released “a framework for change at MCPS,” outlining nine key points of focus for corrective actions. Dr. Monifa McKnight sends out weekly Friday emails to all staff in Montgomery County. In one of her latest emails, McKnight expressed, “Progress in the nine [key points], from how reporting occurs to how investigations are conducted, will move us forward on our shared journey toward a safe and welcoming work environment for employees.” 

Kara Silvestre, the President of the Board of Education, issued a statement on October 12th in regard to the allegations, “The Montgomery County Board of Education (Board) wants to assure MCPS staff and the Montgomery County community that the Board will hold everyone accountable who has been implicated in the systemic failures outlined in the fact-finding report the board commissioned for what they did or did not do.” 

The plan for action may help. After receiving the email, Rizas said, “It seems like now [complaints] would be listened to.”