A Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) teacher is suing the school system for racial discrimination. He alleges he was wrongfully and unexpectedly demoted and transferred to a different school, receiving a significant pay cut in the process.
Rahman Culver, who taught at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring before being transferred, said he was initially recruited to the school as part of an effort by MCPS to hire more Black male administrators.
Culver said as part of the recruitment, there was a stated intent for him to assume a permanent assistant principal role following proper certification. But MCPS changed its budget plans as he approached that goal.
“MCPS notified me, without warning, on Feb. 23, 2024, via a form letter that my role at Blair was being abolished in the school system’s 2025 operating budget and I would be involuntarily transferred,” Culver wrote in an email. “Further, I was denied the opportunity to apply for any permanent assistant principal role in the county despite the fact that I had completed all of the state’s required content-area coursework and fulfilled work obligations that exceeded the county’s recognized internship experience associated with administrative certification.”
Culver said he found staffing guidelines in the MCPS operating budget calling for abolishing provisional assistant principal roles at schools with higher levels of students receiving free and reduced-price meals (FARMS). “These guidelines create a dynamic where educators of color, who are statistically more likely to work at such schools, are unfairly targeted for position abolishment,” Culver asserted.
Culver went on long-term leave following his dismissal from Blair. Upon returning, he engaged in dialogue with MCPS that ended with the school system concluding he was not qualified for a permanent assistant principal role, a decision Culver felt was wrongfully made. Culver said MCPS then involuntarily reassigned him as a special education teacher at Clarksburg High School and reduced his annual salary by more than $25,000.
“That’s after withholding my earnings altogether between January and mid-March as we grappled over where I would be reassigned,” Culver stated. “MCPS even tried unsuccessfully, following my protests, to reassign me to an elementary school — a role for which I’m not certified and have no formal work experience. It is this callousness and utter lack of regard for its employees from MCPS that I find the most frustrating.”
Culver said he is not the only MCPS teacher impacted by language in the operating budget. He said at least five other MCPS schools with provisional assistant principals in the 2023-24 academic year had their positions removed this year. All five schools have FARMS rates that exceed 20 percent, with two exceeding 30 percent.
“Meanwhile, schools in more affluent and less racially diverse communities such as Whitman, Poolesville, Wootton and Churchill all have provisional assistant principals serving this academic year,” Culver noted.
When MCM reached out for a comment from MCPS, we were told MCPS cannot comment on ongoing litigation.
Photo courtesy of Rahman Culver.
