This article, originally published at 3:36 p.m. Feb. 5, 2024, was updated at 4:45 p.m. Feb. 5, 2024, to provide more information on Felder’s history as an educator. It was updated at 7:17 p.m. to correct that the educational consultancy worked with Felder’s school district in Tennessee.
The Board of Education is planning to vote to appoint Monique Felder — a former Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) administrator who most recently was superintendent of a small North Carolina school district — as interim superintendent at its meeting Tuesday.
The school board announced its plans to appoint Felder on Monday, days after former superintendent Monifa McKnight and the board agreed Friday to part ways. The board’s announcement noted past scrutiny surrounding Felder’s level of transparency in accepting payments from an educational consultancy that worked with her school district in Tennessee.
McKnight exited following scrutiny over the school system’s handling of the sexual harassment allegations against former principal Joel Beidleman.
According to a school board press release, Felder began her career in MCPS as a classroom teacher, assistant principal and principal and has 32 years of experience in public education.
Felder worked in MCPS almost continuously from 1999 to 2014, according to her LinkedIn profile. She had been a teacher at Rocky Hill Middle School in Clarksburg; assistant principal of Beall Elementary School, principal of Watkins Mill Elementary School; elementary program supervisor in the division of accelerated and enriched instruction; director of accelerated and enriched instruction; and, lastly, as director of interventions.
From there, she served as the chief academic officer for Metro Nashville Public Schools in Tennesse, and as an executive director for Prince George’s County Public Schools. According to her LinkedIn profile, she worked for two years in PGCS and nearly four years in MNPS.
“Dr. Felder has a long and successful career in public education, and is already familiar with MCPS,” school board President Karla Silvestre said in the release. “We are confident that her background in district leadership, instruction and administration makes her the right person to carry us through this transition and begin the work to rebuild trust among staff and the community, while we identify the next permanent superintendent.”
The board will vote on Felder’s appointment during the meeting, which starts at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
In its announcement of the vote, the school board acknowledged that members were aware of a “prior investigation into the financial disclosure reporting of an honorarium received by Dr. Felder from an educational consulting company in 2019.”
“The Board has reviewed the findings and is confident that the findings were unsubstantiated as the report concluded. The Board is confident that Dr. Felder is a trustworthy, upstanding and highly respected educational leader who will be able to competently guide MCPS through this transition,” the board stated in the release.
In 2019, Nashville News Channel 5 reported that Felder had failed to disclose the nearly $4,000 in honorarium fees that she received from a consulting company in 2017. During that time she was the chief academic officer in Nashville schools.
After auditors found an issue with Felder’s income statement, Channel 5 reported that she amended her statement to reflect the fees. Later, the audit report suggested that Felder did not understand the requirement to list all her income sources, and the allegations of her undisclosed fees were ruled “unsubstantiated.”
A Nashville council member at the time disagreed with the report’s findings, arguing that the allegations were substantiated because the fees were only disclosed after an auditor pointed out the issue.
Felder was the superintendent of Orange County Schools in North Carolina from November 2019 to August 2023. The district has an enrollment of 7,029 students, according to its website.
A new school board for Orange County was elected in 2022, and when Felder’s contract came up for extension in early 2023, the school board denied it, “effectively showing her the door,” said Hillary MacKenzie, former school board chair, according to INDY Week reporting.
Since her departure, Felder, a native of New York, has been coaching and mentoring principals and assistant principals in New Jersey and working with superintendents in North Carolina, the release stated.
Tuesday’s school board meeting and vote can be viewed live at this link or on Comcast Channel 34, Verizon FIOS Channel 36 and RCN Channel 89.
