The Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) paid $300,000 to an unnamed teacher who claimed she was harassed by former Paint Branch High School Principal Joel Beidleman.
Beidleman no longer works at MCPS. He was accused of bullying and sexual harassment by multiple MCPS employees prior to being promoted from principal at Farquhar Middle School to Paint Branch High School. This was first reported in the Washington Post.
Besides the $300,000 settlement, MCPS paid $78,462.32 in legal fees to Karpinski, Cornbrooks and Karp of Baltimore and $68,369.64 in legal fees to Miller, Miller and Canby of Rockville. Another $1,188.80 was spent for transcripts of court recordings.
An MCPS spokesperson said these expenditures “include, but are not limited to, payments to the plaintiff, court costs, costs of MCPS legal counsel (both internal and contracted) and any payments to attorney(s) of former principal Joel Beidleman arising from this suit.”
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich criticized MCPS and called the expenditure “really irritating. I’ve got better uses for the money than to spend it on this case, so I am sad we have to do this.”
Here are Elrich’s comments during his weekly meeting with the press Wednesday.
The Montgomery County Office of Inspector General issued reports faulting MCPS on how it dealt with complaints by staff, which has led to a revamping of the process. Since then, MCPS has instituted specific time requirements on dealing with complaints and on how best to communicate with those who filed complaints.
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