The Simple Answer Is “Yes.”
Somerset County, Maryland is not the kind of place you’d expect to be embroiled in political controversy. Somerset is a small county of 24, 620 residents, the second lowest populated county in Maryland. The county is physically nestled between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean and is known for marshy tidewater landscapes, stunning views, and abundant wildlife. Visitors come to Somerset to kayak, birdwatch, hunt, and fish. The economy is driven by agriculture (especially poultry, soybeans, and vegetables), fishing (notably oysters and crabs), and tourism.
The median age of the population is 38.1 years. Fifty-one percent are White (Non-Hispanic) while 37.9 are Black, 4% are Hispanic and 5% are mixed race. The poverty rate is 20.1% more than twice the state average.
In a state that boasts some of the wealthiest and most densely populated counties in the United States, Somerset is an outlier. Unfortunately, the school system there is also an outlier, ranking 24th out of 24 systems in the state in academic achievement. The county does boast a historically Black college, University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
In the 2024 Presidential election, 57.3% of the population voted for President Trump while only 40% voted for Kamala Harris. Somerset is considered one of the red counties in the overwhelmingly blue state of Maryland.
The political make-up of the school board in Somerset reflects the conservative nature of the district with a 3-2 Republican majority.
So, with other, bigger and more politically relevant counties such as Baltimore County, Montgomery County and Baltimore City experiencing education controversies and financial questions after state audits, one would think that Somerset County would not be on the radar of the Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Carey Wright or the Maryland State Board of Education.
For example, Montgomery County stated that they didn’t properly vet over 1200 district employees with federal background checks:
Md. school district is trying to clear criminal history check backlog
Baltimore County has had significant financial scandals including these:
Payroll fraud, theft and falsifications of records found in Baltimore County Schools
Errors led to Baltimore County Schools overpaying $823,000 to former employees
Baltimore City Public Schools has suffered massive problems in the past decade plus, including 23 schools who had NO students testing proficient in math on state testing. The city’s educational woes were disclosed in the book FAILURE FACTORY by Chris Papst. Chris is the main investigative reporter for FOX 45’s PROJECT BALTIMORE.
This recent story from Papst and FOX45 details other problems in Maryland schools. Maryland taxpayers are giving counties money for students who cannot be found and who do not attend schools in those counties:
Maryland taxpayers paid estimated $168M in 2024 to educate students who could not be found
It’s interesting that when questioned about the above issue, State Superintendent Carey Wright looked at the camera with wide eyes and claimed to know very little about the situation. She said she needs to “look into it more.”
It seems she was preoccupied with inserting herself into local issues instead of doing the job she was hired to do.
While these disasters are happening in those large systems, MSDE and Wright focuses on Somerset County and other “red” counties when school boards fulfill their responsibilities.
When the Somerset County School Board decided to end the contract with their Superintendent Ava Tasker Mitchell for cause, State Superintendent Wright, the State Board, and the State Inspector General decided to jump into the fray with both feet, threatening to remove members of the elected school board in Somerset. In a summary from ChatGpt:
- In February 2025, Somerset’s newly elected conservative board voted to comply with a Federal Executive Order opposing DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives.
- The local superintendent refused to comply, and instead aligned with the State Superintendent, Carey Wright, who publicly rejected the federal directive.
- The State Superintendent and MSDE then:
- Blocked the board’s attempt to terminate the superintendent by pushing an emergency regulation through the AELR Committee, effectively freezing local authority.
- Threatened funding cuts unless the board adopted the SAVVAS curriculum, despite board members not being fully informed about its content.1
The decision of the local, elected board to fire Tasker-Mitchell was overridden for 180 days as designated by State Superintendent Carey Wright who engineered a change in state law so she could do that. One hundred eighty days is technically the length of a school year and this is an unprecedented move. Not only that, but the State Inspector General also jumped into the fight, threatening to remove school board members if they did not approve the purchase of a language arts curriculum the district’s staff recommended but the board had not been able to review.
Neither Wright nor the State Inspector General Richard Henry are elected officials. They are appointed to their positions.
The State went beyond normal practice. They were gleefully joined in the venture by the Somerset Education Association (Teacher’s Union) and several carefully chosen left leaning media union partners who gladly shared the union points in one sided articles. In one story about the situation in Somerset County, the author consistently interviewed ONE black (his race is mentioned repeatedly in every article written about this situation) Somerset resident exclusively to promote the idea that Somerset Board members were acting as racists in the firing of the black Superintendent. That interview was used over and over while other residents, black and white who supported the school board, were virtually ignored.
Here is that article:
https://www.thebanner.com/baltimore/somerset-maga-school-board-meetings-VCJCGLY4C5CKBDHCZ7FNIJXKZU
If you want to see the entire meeting without interpretation, you can go to https://townhallstreams.com/stream.php?location_id=136&id=68828.
The “Peaceful Maryland dad” mentioned in the article caused chaos while making himself look like a victim. He refused to face the school board when he spoke. The author of the article also left out what happened seconds before the video they shared.
This is called “cherry picking.” We encourage to watch the entire video and judge for yourself.
At the 23:58 minute mark of the original, unedited recording of the meeting above the commenter is addressing the audience (instead of the Board) and demands attention from an audience member and mocks the audience member’s disability when he says, “turn up your hearing aids.” This falls under what is known as the “Fighting Words Doctrine:”
Fighting words were first defined by the Supreme Court in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire in 1942. In this case, the court said that fighting words are those that just by saying them can cause violence. It ruled that such words are not protected by the First Amendment as free speech. Fighting Words: Definition, Examples and More
Whether the school board handled the situation perfectly could be up to debate. Again, most school board members are not seasoned politicians and are not used to this kind of interaction so they should be given grace in the matter. However, when one is treated with public disrespect and disregard for rules, it’s hard not to react.
In the case of the teacher’s union in Somerset, they were upset because the Board was in the process of firing Tasker Mitchell and would not allow her to negotiate teachers’ contracts. Vice President of the Union, Barbara Hicks, testified for the removal of Board President Matthew Lankford at a Maryland State Board of Education meeting, presenting a petition containing 467 signatures to push for his dismissal.
While any citizen can petition for the removal of a local official, the teachers’ unions have never done so successfully. The 467 signatures garnered do not override the votes of Somerset County residents in recent elections.
The larger question remains, why are leftist bureaucrats, media and union bosses suddenly targeting school board members?
During the months prior to the 2024 election, there was a sudden influx of Conservative candidates in school board races in Maryland. These races are non-partisan by nature, but with all the leftist policies and staff members infiltrating the public schools in Maryland, conservatives started filing to run.
Democrats and particularly the Maryland State Education Association took umbrage with that. In 2023 MSEA sent out a message warning membership that the election of “shadowy, extremist groups with little to no experience or training in education theory or practice are challenging previously embraced K-12 literature and curriculum” would take instructional decisions out of the hands of educators and books out of media centers.
It’s interesting how MSEA assumes that anyone who opposes them has “little or no experience or training in education theory.” There are many of us out here who have had plenty of both. It’s also interesting that they think some of the pornographic and sexually explicit materials removed from school libraries and classrooms were “previously embraced.” Embraced by who? Sex offenders?
The union statement continues: “The stakes for school board races are becoming higher—their impact goes beyond what your next contract looks like and extends into parts of our schools and profession that have always been seen as the purview of educators rather than political extremists.”
Anyone who doesn’t toe their line is a “political extremist,” a term that is subjective at best.
In other words, the union’s words could be interpreted to mean, “Who do these citizens think they are, electing people they want to school boards?”
The Democrat party of Maryland was even more upset about conservative board members being elected. Here is a sample of their meltdown:
Maryland Democratic Party Sounds the Alarm on Far-Right Groups Infiltrating Down-Ballot, Non-Partisan Races In a first for the State Party, Maryland Democrats invest resources in school board races to counter influence of radical right-wing groups Moms for Liberty, 1776 Project Annapolis, MD – In an unprecedented move amid a competitive election year, the Maryland Democratic Party (MDP) is directly investing in school board races across the state for the first time in modern Party history. The investments are aimed at countering the far-right agenda being championed by extremist and hate-group aligned candidates running in non-partisan school board races around the state. This cycle, the Maryland Democratic Party has built the largest coordinated campaign in Maryland history, and, in addition to leveraging the organization to deploy canvassers in targeted school board races, the Party is directly investing in candidates and local organizations. In a number of races, these investments will close the gap for candidates trailing in fundraising against their right-wing opponents and other races will help extend candidates’ cash on hand lead. “The Maryland Democratic Party is committed to defending our students from the dangerous fringe agenda that extremist candidates and the far-right groups are hoping to bring to our state,” said MDP Chair Ken Ulman. “We won’t allow radical activists dedicated to banning books and discriminating against students to take over our schools.”
Remember, if you don’t agree with everything they say, you are part of the “dangerous fringe” and “far right, radical activists.”
Don’t forget the baseless allegations they throw at candidates, other individuals, and groups:
Maryland Democrat Party Throws Temper Tantrum Over School Board Candidates – The Easton Gazette
The Dems claim they never had ANYTHING to do with school board races in past elections. They also claim that parental rights groups are “hate groups” and “white supremacists” while defending violent protest groups such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter.
Sadly, for both the unions AND the Democrat party, many of the conservative candidates they targeted won, thus leaving them in a perilous position. Local school boards were no longer progressive, socialist lap dogs.
And that is a problem for those in Maryland who felt they had a slam dunk when it came to implementing all the indoctrination in gender ideology, racial issues, and implementation of progressive curricula.
In Maryland counties such as Frederick, Carroll, and Calvert, the State bureaucracy is targeting conservatives as well. The Maryland State Education Association and the Democrat party are there to provide support for the one-party rule establishment.
During a recent rally on the steps of the Frederick County School Public Schools headquarters (shown above), fully masked “citizens” surrounded Board members Colt Black and Jaime Brennan, chanting, “F*** Colt Black and F*** Jamie Brennan, both conservative school board members in Frederick while banging on pats and pans. Black was attempting to speak about a policy under discussion that would allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms of the gender they “identify” as at any given moment. This is a perfect example of the extreme left silencing those with different opinions.
This is not the worst thing that happened to Black.
Frederick County School Board member Colt Black, a Republican and father of three in Frederick County, was put under a Title IX investigation for comments he made at the board’s January 8 public meeting.
At that meeting, Black expressed concerns that Board Policy 443 — which compels students and school staff to use students’ transgender pronouns and names — violates free speech and freedom of association rights under the First Amendment.
Black recommended the board follow guidance established in the 1943 Supreme Court case, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. In that case, the high court ruled that compelling public school students to salute the American flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance was a violation of their First Amendment rights.
“I’m not sitting here saying that you can’t come to school and be who you are,” Black added. “You should be able to do that. But at the same time, people should not have to be forced to participate with their language.”
Shortly after that comment, a Title IX lawsuit was filed against Black. A local Democratic group, the Frederick County Democratic Central Committee (FCDCC), put out a statement calling Black’s comments “hate speech” and encouraging community members to file discrimination and harassment complaints to FCPS.
The Alliance Defending Freedom took on Black’s case and ADF senior counsel Tyson Langhofer pressured the board to drop its investigation.
“Students, teachers, and school board members have the constitutionally protected freedom to express their beliefs. The First Amendment prohibits the weaponization of the law to silence one’s political opponents,” Langhofer said in a statement. “Colt is a democratically elected member of the Board. He cares about the integrity of his school district and the quality of education students receive, and he rightly observed that Policy 443 contains serious constitutional violations. Rather than take his concerns seriously, the Board caved to political pressure to punish him for his beliefs. We are urging the board to end its vindictive Title IX investigation. As we’ve recently seen elsewhere, there is a high cost for school districts that punish officials for their beliefs.”
After investigation, the county found that Black had NOT violated Title IX.
Updated: Investigation finds school board member’s comments didn’t violate federal law
In the Baltimore County Education system, where they can’t account for how millions of dollars was spent, progressives targeted Board member Maggie Domanowski after she had the “gall” to ask the Baltimore County Superintendent of Schools about the budget she was presenting:
Fortunately, Domanwoski’s “censure” was overturned by the Maryland State Board of Education.
In Calvert County, the School Board voted unanimously to repeal an “anti-racism” policy put in place after the George Floyd riots in 2020, stating that it was redundant and that the county already had anti-discrimination policies in place. They were excoriated by the local chapter of the NAACP as “white supremacists” who were trying to hurt “brown children.”
The “Anti-racism” policy was described as a policy which acknowledged institutional racism in schools, eliminated systemic racism from CCPS, eliminated disproportionality of discipline and suspensions among racial groups and acknowledged the concept of white privilege and white supremacy and its hindrance on achieving equity.
A policy of acknowledgement that white people are the sole problem and a policy that created a disciplinary/suspension quota system. Is that really “anti-racism” or is the policy itself racist? The issue will be up for discussion at the next Calvert board meeting.
Calvert County Public Schools repeal anti-racism policy – NBC4 Washington
It’s interesting that while Maryland test scores are tanking and some school systems have only 20% or fewer of their students scoring proficient in math and reading statewide, the issues described above are getting the primary focus of these school boards, MSDE, the State School Board and State Superintendent Carey Wright. There are also counties throughout the state where special education students are being either totally ignored or are not getting the services they should get according to State and Federal law, but MSDE doesn’t seem particularly concerned.
They seem to have different priorities.
So, if conservative elected boards are being targeted, then what is the impact? The involvement and threats of the State Board of Education and Inspector General may deter some conservative candidates from running or embolden leftist opposition groups. After all, this is what is happened in Somerset County:
- State agencies allegedly leaked confidential information to media outlets which published critical stories about the board.
- The board was labeled “MAGA” and accused of promoting a “fringe agenda.”
- The Somerset Education Association reportedly engaged in political activism, including robocalls advocating for the removal of board chair Matthew Lankford.
Which conservative would actively run for office only to have this happen to them? Who would even consider it? While MSDE and state officials may argue their actions are about upholding educational standards and legal compliance, the pattern of interventions, emergency regulations, and public framing strongly suggest a politically motivated response to conservative school boards.
The deck is clearly stacked against these conservative board members and conservative counties. In today’s climate of virulent opposition like that which we have seen nationally, the result is a society where different views are not only censored but also actively suppressed with violence.
That is not good for anyone, particularly our children.
Additional Stories:
Conservative PAC, Dems face off over Maryland school board races – MarylandReporter.com
MAGA School Board’s Impact on Local Education – Postindustrial
Maryland conservatives make gains in school board races – CNS Maryland
-Jan Greenhawk
The post Is Maryland Government Targeting Conservative School Board Members? appeared first on The Easton Gazette.
