County delegation presses school board on seclusion and restraint

Jan. 7—Members of Frederick County's delegation to the Maryland General Assembly asked the school board pointed questions Thursday about its knowledge of a federal investigation into the school system's unlawful use of seclusion and restraint against students with disabilities.

The often-tense discussion came at the end of the delegation's yearly meeting with the Frederick County Board of Education. Dels. Jesse Pippy (R-District 4), Karen Lewis Young (D-District 3) and Carol Krimm (D-District 3) dominated the conversation, pressing the board on its plans to improve, the terms of its separation agreement with former superintendent Terry Alban and what members knew about the problems when.

At times, the delegates expressed obvious indignation about the findings of the U.S. Department of Justice, which accused the district of "systematically and improperly" using heavy-handed disciplinary tactics to address nonemergency situations.

Under the terms of the district's settlement, it had to immediately end seclusion, overhaul its restraint practices, institute new training and oversight requirements and provide therapy to some of the affected students.

"It was just shocking," Pippy said. "It was egregious. Of all the people that this could happen to — handicapped children?"

Pippy and Lewis Young both pushed board members — whom they said are responsible for oversight of the school system — on why they had expressed surprise at the DOJ's findings and the terms of the settlement. Several lawmakers and board members said they first learned those details in a Frederick News-Post article published the day the settlement was signed.

The DOJ wrote in a news release that it notified FCPS of its investigation in October 2020. Board member Liz Barrett said she and her colleagues didn't hear about it until Sept. 3, 2021, when it was briefly mentioned in a quarterly legal update that Alban sent to the board via email.

Even then, board members said, the vague information didn't set off any particular alarm bells. Like all large public school systems, FCPS experiences near-constant lawsuits, complaints and investigations from various bodies, said board president Brad Young.

Later, board member Jay Mason claimed that while the DOJ notified FCPS about an impending investigation in October 2020, it didn't actually begin its review until August 2021 — roughly a month before board members were notified.

Still, Pippy seemed dissatisfied. He argued Alban hadn't done enough to make board members aware of the magnitude of the issue and asked board members why they didn't terminate Alban's contract. Instead, they mutually agreed to part ways with her. Under the agreement, Alban will receive more than $800,000.

"Why was the superintendent given what the public perceives as a golden parachute?" Pippy asked. "You're giving this person essentially paid vacation for the remainder of her term, which is $800,000, and a good letter of recommendation if somebody asks."

Board members, meanwhile, emphasized that in Maryland, only the state superintendent has the power to fire a regional superintendent in the middle of their term. Barrett said the process can take up to 18 months.

"It's extremely long, expensive and onerous," Young said. "It is very demoralizing to a school system. Our board took what we thought was the best path forward."

Other than that, Young said, he couldn't discuss personnel matters in a public meeting.

Regardless of when the board knew about the DOJ's investigation, Lewis Young said, members should have known FCPS had a problem with seclusion and restraint. In 2017, state law began requiring school districts to report annual statistics on its use of the practices.

The first two reports, which are publicly available but difficult to find on the state's website, show Frederick County far outpaced every other district in Maryland in its use of both seclusion and restraint — even surpassing school systems like Montgomery County, which is three times its size.

"OK, most of you weren't here in 2017 when the legislation was implemented," Lewis Young acknowledged. "But these reports came out annually for four years. And they were posted on the State Board of Education's website with data from Frederick County."

At one point, board member Karen Yoho contended that while problematic, FCPS' use of seclusion and restraint were not illegal.

"There were no laws broken," she said. "Like it or not, there were no laws broken."

The DOJ, however, repeatedly referred to FCPS' use of seclusion and restraint as "unlawful." It wrote that the district discriminated against students with disabilities and denied them access to a safe learning environment. That was in "pervasive noncompliance" with the Americans With Disabilities Act, the DOJ said, which is a federal civil rights law.

While disabled students make up only about 10 percent of FCPS' student population, they accounted for more than 99 percent of the seclusions and restraints that the DOJ analyzed.

Lewis Young said she felt the district had violated state laws governing seclusion, as well.

Krimm brought up the racial disparities in FCPS' seclusion and restraint data. While Black students only comprised 12 percent of FCPS' population in the 2017-18 school year, they made up 59 percent of the restraint incidents and 43 percent of the seclusion incidents. The next year, 37 percent of restraint incidents and 32 percent of seclusion incidents involved Black students.

The number of restraint incidents affecting Black FCPS students in 2017-18 was more than double the amount of incidents affecting white students, who make up more than 50 percent of the district's total student body.

"I would like for you to investigate racial disparities throughout the system, and then provide feedback to me — or to the whole delegation, as a matter of fact," Krimm said.

Throughout the conversation, board members acknowledged the system had a problem that needed fixing. Speaking publicly for the first time on the matter, interim superintendent Mike Markoe said the district "recognized and owned" the DOJ's findings, and that it was committed to improving.

However, members also pushed back on harsher characterizations. Pippy, for instance, repeatedly used the word "abuse" — which board member Jay Mason took issue with.

"I think we all recognize that it's horrible. We're going to fix it," Mason said. "It was excessive, but it wasn't abuse. The DOJ did not say abuse. It said discrimination. It said excessive."

Follow Jillian Atelsek on Twitter: @jillian_atelsek

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