Editor’s Note: A draft version of this article contained unconfirmed reporting on a candidate for interim superintendent and was inadvertently published; an interim superintendent will be named Tuesday.
This article, originally published at 5:02 p.m. Feb. 2, 2024, has been updated numerous times with additional information.
Superintendent Monifa McKnight will be departing Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in a “mutually agreed separation” following scrutiny over the school system’s handling of the sexual harassment allegations against former principal Joel Beidleman.
Her separation was announced in a press release from the Board of Education around 5 p.m. Friday.
“Today the Montgomery County Board of Education and Dr. Monifa McKnight have mutually agreed to separate, effective February 2, 2024. The Board is grateful to Dr. McKnight for her many years of service to MCPS and public education,” the release said. “We wish her well in her next chapter. The Board will work together with staff to ensure a smooth transition.”
MCPS Chief Operating Officer Brian Hull will take over as acting superintendent until a new interim superintendent is announced Wednesday, according to the press release.
The statements from the school board and McKnight did not detail the terms of any financial settlement. An MCPS spokesman did not immediately respond Friday evening to questions about McKnight’s settlement or details of the upcoming superintendent search.
McKnight announced Jan. 22 that the Board of Education asked her to resign but that she was planning to fight for her employment and had hired a lawyer. The school board would not comment on the matter at the time, citing personnel privacy concerns.
The school system sent out a second release, written by McKnight, explaining her reasoning for leaving.
“I have felt over the past several months, there has been a distraction. When the focus is no longer on whom I have agreed to serve, I must control my own fate. I have also maintained that it is critical that my reputation remains grounded in facts and truth,” McKnight wrote. “Effective today, after careful reflection, prayer, and willingness to demand fairness, I have reached a mutually agreed separation with the Board of Education.”
The school board met in closed session until 5 p.m. Friday prior to releasing the news. In their statement, members also said, “The Board is aware of the important work ahead. We must rebuild trust, begin to heal, and ensure that our school system is equipped to serve the students, staff, and families who make up our great school community.”
As Board of Education President Karla Silvestre left the building around 6 p.m., she told gathered media: “We’ll have more to say in the coming days.” She declined to answer any other questions.
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich (D) said at a news conference Friday evening that while he appreciates school board members saying they need to rebuild trust with the community, they must do more.
“Rebuilding trust will not be as simple as replacing the superintendent,” Elrich said. “The underlying policy problems predate the superintendent.”
Montgomery County Councilmembers Evan Glass (D-At-Large) and Dawn Luedtke (D-Dist. 7) have called for MCPS leaders to testify under oath at a joint hearing of the Education and Culture and Audit committees on Thursday. Elrich said Friday evening that the Council has the right to ask any member of the school board to testify and said that transparency must be a priority for the school system going forward.
“All these questions have to be answered at some point,” Elrich said. He said one key question is: Why did the board ask McKnight to resign? He said he wants to know more about discussions that surrounded Beidleman’s promotion from Farquhar Middle School principal to Paint Branch High School even as he was the subject of an internal investigation. Beidleman was no longer an MCPS employee as of Jan. 24.
The County Council released a statement just after 6 p.m., saying it “respects” the decision and that it is “confident” the Board of Education and county officials will “work collaboratively” to navigate the transition.
“We encourage the Board of Education to provide regular public updates as it navigates this leadership change,” the statement said.
Luedtke released her own statement about McKnight’s departure on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“The announcement today that Superintendent Dr. Monifa McKnight is leaving her position provides new leadership, but it does not provide answers,” Luedkte wrote. “Without a detailed and public explanation of the school system’s failures in the matter of Joel Beidleman, MCPS and the Board of Education will have failed in their collective commitment to transparency and accountability. I will continue to advocate the County Council use all appropriate measures to pursue these answers. Anything less would be a disservice to the public, whose trust in our school system is justifiably broken and must be restored.”
The Montgomery County Council of Parent-Teacher Associations (MCCPTA) addressed McKnight’s resignation in a statement texted to MoCo360.
“The mission of MCCPTA has never wavered. We stand ready to continue our work in partnership with MCPS during this transition, and we are prepared for a new season where we can return the focus to our children and to supporting our families and school communities,” Debby Orsak, MCCPTA president, wrote.
McKnight initially argued that the school board did not provide justification for removing her.
“The Board has never written, documented, or communicated any concern about my performance, and through the evaluation process has consistently affirmed that I have met expectations,” she wrote in a Jan. 22 release. “For these reasons, I’m concerned that its actions are based on something other than my performance, which would constitute a violation of my contract.”
The Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) voiced support for the board in seeking McKnight’s removal. The teachers union, as well as several county officials, have called for greater transparency and accountability from the school system in regard to how it handled the Beidleman investigation.
However, others, such as County Councilmember Will Jawando (D-At-Large) and the Montgomery County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, voiced support for due process, with the NAACP alleging the school board was “attempting to scapegoat” McKnight.
The Washington Post first reported on the allegations against Beidleman in August. The Post investigation revealed that there were at least 18 sexual harassment reports filed by MCPS staff against the principal during his 12-year tenure. He has denied the allegations against him.
Beidleman was a principal at Farquhar Middle School in Olney. On McKnight’s recommendation, the school board promoted Beidleman on June 27 to be the principal of Paint Branch High School in Burtonsville. Following the investigation by the Post, he was put on administrative leave. MCPS confirmed on Jan. 24 that Beidleman was no longer an MCPS employee.
One report by the county’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) confirmed that Beidleman had harassed and bullied employees in violation of MCPS’ Code of Conduct, and another OIG report showed that MCPS leadership failed to address serious problems in its investigations despite being told about the disarray four times since 2019.
In the aftermath of the scandal, McKnight was tasked by the board with developing an action plan to address the failures of the district and attempt to rebuild the trust of the public.
A MoCo360 investigation last month found that the heavily redacted report by the law firm of Jackson Lewis indicated that McKnight knew about the existence of an internal investigation into Beidleman by July 19, 2023, but did not immediately inform the school board.
Members of MCPS’ senior staff and the school board are set to appear before the County Council in a joint meeting of the Education and Culture and Audit committees Thursday to discuss the inspector general’s reports on MCPS’ investigation of Beidleman.
McKnight was appointed to the superintendent role in February 2022, making her the first Black woman to lead the school district. Her contract was intended to run until 2026 with a yearly salary of $320,000 as of February 2023.
Prior to her appointment, MCPS hired McKnight as deputy superintendent in May 2019. When the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools in March 2020, she helped lead MCPS’ efforts to transition to virtual learning and later the reopening of schools in 2021.
McKnight was named the interim superintendent in 2021 after Jack Smith’s retirement, and she continued to deal with the challenges of the pandemic and navigating new territory in a post-pandemic school system.
Just before being appointed as superintendent, McKnight and the school board faced sharp criticism of their handling of the pandemic and plans to bring students back to the classroom. In January 2022, teachers declared no confidence in MCPS due to failures to provide a reliable testing program; address student absenteeism and staffing shortages; and collaborate and communicate with the school community, leaving many with a deep mistrust of MCPS leadership.
Many parents also critiqued McKnight’s administration for a lack of two-way communication, transparency, and a perception of being closed off from external scrutiny from community stakeholders.
Prior to leading the school district, McKnight was the chief school management and instructional leadership officer at Howard County Public Schools. She also worked for MCPS as a teacher, assistant principal and principal at Ridgeview Middle School in Gaithersburg. She later served as the director for secondary leadership development programs from 2016 to 2019 at MCPS.
Many of the issues that McKnight has faced as superintendent were described as “ticking time bombs” by Diego Uriburu — the executive director of Identity and co-founder of the Black and Brown Coalition — inherited from previous superintendents and later detonated from the pressures of the pandemic, such as chronic absenteeism and student drug use.
McKnight also navigated the handling of a shooting at Col. Zadok Magruder High School in January 2022 which left one student with life-threatening injuries. A year later, MCPS owned up to its failures in its response to the shooting and communication with families that resulted in delayed parent-student reunification.
Antisemitism and hate-based incidents also spiked across the county as well as in the school district during McKnight’s leadership. Prior to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, MCPS saw numerous antisemitic incidents from elementary to high school involving the drawing of swastikas on school property, hate-based graffiti and an incident in which students performed an antisemitic salute on school grounds. The district was also widely criticized by some in the Jewish and Israeli communities for its delayed and tepid response after the attack.
McKnight’s administration has most recently been under scrutiny for mounting legal fees – nearly half a million dollars – from various controversies and lawsuits against the district. One of the main controversies stems from the district’s use of LGBTQ+ inclusive books in the elementary English Language Arts curriculum.
On Nov. 15, McKnight announced the hiring of Nancy Navarro, a former school board member and president and county councilmember, as senior adviser for external affairs at a salary of $96.62 per hour on a three month contract.
“The Senior [Adviser] for External Affairs in the Office of the Superintendent is a new position aimed at advancing the priorities of the Board of Education and the school system’s key objectives,” McKnight said in a statement emailed to MoCo360.
Faced with many challenges over the past two years, McKnight also saw accomplishments in raising student test scores and literacy rates after the pandemic. Under McKnight, the district began to implement the Science of Reading and use new early childhood literacy tests with the goal of having students read by third grade.
In addition, McKnight’s efforts to address racism in the school system with the anti-racist system audit and implementation of restorative justice have been praised by students at recent public hearings on the fiscal year 2025 operating budget.
McKnight has also been praised in the past for working closely with the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) on combatting antisemitism in schools and providing training for teachers, and working with the Black and Brown Coalition for Academic Excellence to address racial achievement gaps that persist.
For students, McKnight was known to have a unique ability to connect with and listen closely to students and their concerns. Some students said that they could see McKnight had “genuine love” for the students and was the superintendent who had “been most present and engaged with students,” MoCo360 reported in August.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Former MoCo360 reporter Em Espey’s previous reporting contributed to this article.
