Ethics Panel at Center of Prince George’s School Board Feud to Resign - Maryland Matters
State inspector general for education declines to say whether he is investigating ethics panel.
www.marylandmatters.org
...The school board’s ethics panel is made of five county residents who serve without compensation. The panel produced a confidential set of “findings” against seven of the board’s 14 members last year. The members named in the documents vigorously rejected allegations of wrongdoing, and the public release of the reports — which were mailed anonymously to elected leaders — sparked months of controversy.
Critics of the seven-member bloc viewed the findings as cause for their removal; defenders of the group saw the investigation as a politically motivated smear. The reports deepened feelings of ill will between the members accused of wrongdoing and a slightly smaller bloc that tended to side with Miller.
In their letter, members of the ethics panel said their service forced them to deal with a school board that is “seen by many, including the State [Board of Education], as dysfunctional.” They also complained that members of the board “ignored” their requests for information and of attempting to “litigate Ethics Panel Findings in the press...”