A former acting assistant principal at Montgomery Blair High School alleges in a lawsuit that Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) and the county school board implemented staffing guidelines that limit access to administrative roles for African American educators, according to March court documents.
Rahman Culver, a former administrator at the Silver Spring school, initially filed a discrimination lawsuit against the school board in July 2024. The suit followed the February 2024 elimination of a provisional administrator role at Blair held by Culver and the district’s alleged refusal to allow him to apply to a new, full-time assistant principal position, Culver told Bethesda Today recently.
In March, Culver amended his complaint, adding claims of retaliation, after he said he was demoted to serve in a special education role at Clarksburg High School. Culver said he’s looking for MCPS to change its staffing guidelines and to restore his ability to serve as an assistant principal.
“I want the school system to just employ a little bit more awareness … with how they conceive of making decisions on where folks should be staffed and how they should be staffed throughout the county,” Culver said, who was previously on long-term medical leave before teaching at Clarksburg High.
MCPS spokesperson Liliana Lopez said Tuesday the district can’t comment on ongoing litigation. School board communications coordinator Christie Scott didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
An alumnus of Blair, Culver became a teacher at his alma mater in 2016, according to his complaint. In January 2022, the former principal of Blair, Renay Johnson, recommended Culver to an MCPS program that aimed to “identify and recruit male educators of color to apply” for an assistant school administrator position, according to the complaint.
In 2022, Culver applied and was approved to serve in an assistant administrator position at Blair and then was promoted to serve as an acting assistant principal in October 2022. In 2023, Johnson offered Culver the opportunity to continue to serve as an acting assistant principal for the 2023-2024 school year, according to the lawsuit. Johnson also agreed to advocate to allow Culver’s experience in the acting assistant principal role to count toward the required internship for an administrator license, which Culver was pursuing, the lawsuit says. Johnson didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
Culver’s complaint alleges that MCPS had a practice of placing African American administrators into schools with high rates of students who qualify for Free and Reduced Meal Services (FARMS), a measure of poverty. Culver was placed at Blair, which had a 54% FARMS rate during the 2022-2023 school year, according to the MCPS school profile.
Then the school board released a proposed MCPS operating budget for fiscal year 2025 that called for converting the assistant school administrator role to a traditional assistant principal post at high schools with a FARMS rate higher than a 20% and middle schools with a rate higher than 30%. That’s when Culver was notified that his role as an assistant school administrator would be cut, and he would need to apply for one of the new positions or be involuntarily placed in another job, according to the complaint.
Culver told Bethesda Today recently the staffing guidelines imposed in fiscal year 2025 had a negative impact on staff of color, since he said the district often placed Black assistant school administrators in schools with high FARMS rates. Culver also said the positions were for meant for those educators who may not advance into the school administrator role through more traditional means.
“This provisional role was created to be more accessible,” Culver said. “Black and Latinx staff educators are more likely to work in buildings where you have a higher share of black and Latinx students … [MCPS is] removing opportunities for staff to access.”
The complaint also alleges MCPS refused to allow Culver to apply for the assistant principal position at Blair because he hadn’t completed a principal internship, despite working as an acting assistant principal for two years.
“My reaction to that is, that’s ludicrous,” Culver said. “I’ve done the job in full for two years. That exceeds any type of related internship experience.”
MCPS also allegedly refused to work with Culver to “credit him” for the two years he spent as an assistant principal at Blair while he pursued the required certification, which is a prerequisite to applying for a full-time assistant principal role, according to the complaint.
Culver went on long-term medical leave in July 2024, as a “direct result of the stressors caused by” the removals. Culver remained on medical leave until December 2024 when MCPS authorized his return to work.
When discussing his return to work in January, MCPS said there were no openings similar to his previous position for which he was qualified. The district instead first assigned him to a special education role in an elementary school, according to the complaint, a job that Culver said he didn’t have experience or certification for since he has only worked in high schools. He was on unpaid leave when MCPS offered to assign Culver to a special education position at Clarksburg High School in March.
Though the reassignment represents a $20,000 annual pay cut from the salary of his Blair post, “Culver had no alternative but to accept it” because he had been on unpaid leave, according to the lawsuit.
Now back in the classroom after months of medical and unpaid leave, Culver said that while he’s thankful he can continue to work with students, he’s still frustrated with the situation.
“I’ve already made some … very positive rapport with many of the students here … so I’ve tried to draw inspiration from that dynamic,” Culver said. “Obviously, [there is] this sense of loss and just a very deep frustration. Because, again, this is something that could be avoided.”
