Opinion: Vanishing Acts in MCPS – A Tale of Leadership Lost and Found

March 10, 2024 – Anonymous Op-ed

What does MCPS have in common with the old Soviet Union? Both were or are good at “disappearing” top staff. The USSR was famous for air-brushing the disfavored out of photographs or even paintings. MCPS simply wipes their names from the organizational chart with a quick internal email.

But just as the earlier iterations of those annual Soviet May Day parade photos remained, the magic of the Internet saves the earlier MCPS office configurations. Currently, the Office of School Support and Well-Being is a prime candidate for the same sleuthing skills that kept USSR-Kremlin watchers employed for years. For those unfamiliar with OSSWB, it’s one of the most important parts of the MCPS organizational chart.

Background

The Office of School Support and Well-Being is arguably the most essential staffing arm inside Central Office: it is the division that supervises all 216 schools and their principals and admin teams within MCPS. It is the one division with a daily, hands-on role in the lives of teachers, students, staff, and administrators. Every school problem – including fighting on campus — comes to OSSWB. (In the OSSWB office, the Associate Superintendent for Clarksburg HS has allegedly said that CHS cannot suspend any more students because the school’s suspension numbers are already too high. Moderately MOCO asked MCPS about this and has not yet received a response but will update if we do)

Every principal selection works through OSSWB – it was a major part of the Joel Beidleman fiasco. It is the office with which PTA and PTSA leaders are directed by MCCPTA to engage when there are issues at their schools – and it is also what parents write to when they have problems that are not being solved at the school level.

On the school supervision side, OSSWB is organized with a chief, three Associate Superintendents (among whom the 216 schools are divided, meaning each Associate Superintendent is responsible for more than 52,000 students), and nine Directors (ten are listed on the current website), divided among each Associate Superintendent. The Directors are the “direct” supervisors of school principals. By the raw numbers, each Director has more than 17,000 students under their purview. (The Associate Superintendent of Well-Being, Learning, and Achievement is also housed here – that office picks up among its charges behavioral health, restorative justice, extracurriculars, and attendance).

In other words, OSSWB is a big deal and has a major mandate inside MCPS. So, major staff churn is concerning – especially since it is a very small staff relative to its responsibilities.

These positions also end up being amongst the highest paid positions in MCPS which you can tell from a quick glance from this piece from 2023 with MCPS highest paid in 2022.

What’s happened in the last year at OSSWB?

In February 2023, before the Beidleman scandal broke, the then-OSSWB Chief Ruschelle Reuben was listed in a five-way tie for fifth highest paid staff member in MCPS, earning $226,244, along with the likes of Chief of Strategic Initiatives Stephanie Sheron, who oversees MCPS’s tech systems and acquisitions, and then-Chief of Staff Brian Stockton. At some point, Reuben disappeared. She’s currently listed online as “Director of Education & Workforce Skills Training for Correctional Institutions” on the Maryland Department of Labor website for the state of Maryland. This is not a common career trajectory for elite MCPS leadership.

In mid-October, then-Superintendent Monifa McKnight brought in Dr. LaVerne G. Kimball to serve as acting chief in OSSWB, adding that Dr. Kimball served MCPS for 37 years and retired in 2018 as an associate superintendent of elementary schools. Kimball left around the time McKnight did (both appeared to leave early February 2024) – and significantly after MoCo360 reported that Kimball “may be one of the MCPS employees responsible for the rise of Joel Beidleman. Kimball was the community superintendent who oversaw the schools at which McKnight, Beidleman, Chief of Districtwide Services and Supports Dana Edwards (more on Edwards here) and Chief of Strategic Initiatives Stephanie Sheron were administrators in the early 2010s. In that supervisory position, Kimball would have played a role in recommending Beidleman for promotion three times.”

In February, OSSWB listed no chief and the following personnel on its homepage: Dr. Peter Moran, Associate Superintendent, Team 1; Ms. Lance Dempsey, Acting Associate Superintendent, Team 2; Mr. David Adams, Acting Associate Superintendent, Team 3; and Damon Monteleone, Associate Superintendent for Well-Being, Learning, and Achievement.

Edwards returned in February per our reporting only to go back on extended leave from February 14, 2024 through March 25, 2024 according to an email obtained by Moderately MOCO.

Latest Musical Chairs

It’s March, and the org chart has changed again. Lance Dempsey, who, according to reporting by both MoCo360 and Moderately MOCO, was repeatedly accused of bullying in her previous roles, is gone and moved to “special assistant to the Office of the Deputy Superintendent” according to the memo to staff obtained by The MoCoShow. This position “will provide support to the Office of School Support and Well-Being as well as the Office of the Chief Academic Officer”

Peter Moran is now the acting chief of OSSWB.  (This is either a fast track to a promotion for Dr. Moran, who was appointed Associate Superintendent in June 2022, or, given the trajectory of the last year, the equivalent of being fired from a cannon and out of the MCPS system.)

Sean McGee, formerly a director in the office, is now an Acting Associate Superintendent; David Adams is still an Acting Associate Superintendent, and in another surprise, Donna Redmond Jones, who was placed on administrative leave last fall and has been identified in news outlets as part of the Beidleman supervisory/promotional chain of command, has quietly returned to her Associate Superintendent role.

If this level of churn gives MCPS observers whiplash, imagine being a principal in need of actual support and living through this MCPS version of musical chairs. Or being a PTA leader trying to work with this office. Or a parent writing with a serious problem. Not to mention the total lack of transparency in one of the most essential Central Office staffing roles.

MCPS Responds to Questions

Here is the MCPS answer to Moderately MOCO regarding these staffing changes: “The few changes just made are acting, and those positions are posted. Two messages were sent to all staff to communicate these acting positions.” One of these messages to staff was published on Sunday 3/10/24 by The MoCo Show (as previously mentioned). Aside from reading like a side word salad, the fact is that OSSWB has had three heads in the last 12 months, with two actings; and 2/3 of the current Associate Superintendents are “Acting” – and the only permanent one was placed on administrative leave apparently for her role in the Joel Beidleman promotion scandal. It’s only possible to define them as a “few changes” because there are only a few positions to begin with. Nor is any of this a confidence builder for anyone seeking transparency from MCPS. The BOE wants to appoint a new superintendent by June. Maybe they should be asking what is happening inside the system now.

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