Nullifies Votes of Citizens by Telling Elected School Board She Will Remove Them From Office and Defund the County Schools For Replacing Ava Tasker-Mitchell
We thought that Maryland State Superintendent Carey Wright had reached the limits of state tyranny last week when she went to the Maryland Administrative Executive Legislative Review Committee (AELR) to request an extension of her power. She wanted to keep a longer “stay” in place to prevent the firing of the Somerset County Superintendent (or any local superintendent) by the local board.
Little did we know about how nasty Carey Wright would be in order to impose her “unelected by anyone” bureaucratic power by threatening elected school board officials with removal because she disagrees with their personnel decisions. On August 4, she did her best Don Corleone impression of a Mafia shakedown.
August 6th was supposed to be Somerset County Superintendent Ava Tasker-Mitchell’s last day. The newly elected majority of the Somerset County School Board decided earlier in the year that Tasker-Mitchell was not implementing the policies the board had voted on, was not making adequate progress in improving academics in the county, was ineffective, and insubordinate. They fired her “for cause.”
For those who may not know, school boards in Maryland have the power to hire and fire superintendents.
But instead of turning in the keys to her office, Tasker-Mitchell defied the board and appealed their decision to the State Superintendent of Schools and the Maryland State Board of Education, all unelected officials. The State Superintendent, who already had the right since 1963 to stay the firing for 60 days according to COMAR, decided that wasn’t long enough. She requested that the AELR Committee amend the COMAR regulation to allow her an “unlimited” stay of ANY school board decision that is appealed, even beyond just the firing of a superintendent. In this case, Wright imposed a 180 day stay. This allows Tasker-Mitchell to stay in her job for at least 180 more days, meaning she will be Somerset County Superintendent until the end of January 2026. Here’s more information on that:
Maryland Public School Bureaucracy Usurps Local Control – The Easton Gazette
When the Somerset County Board of Education objected to Wright’s amended regulation and disclosed that they had appointed an interim Superintendent, David Bromwell, the State Superintendent wrote a letter to them threatening to remove them from office and to defund the school system if they didn’t let Tasker-Mitchell stay during the 180-day appeal. Here is a copy of that letter:
Coincidently, 180 days is the length of a school year for Maryland students.
It’s clear that there is more than just a procedural disagreement in this issue. Somerset County was the only county in Maryland whose school board voted to enforce President Trump’s Executive Order requiring the removal of DEI from public schools. They voted to support the EO in February 2025:
U.S. Department of Education Takes Action to Eliminate DEI | U.S. Department of Education
There’s more to the story as well. A story from the Delmarva Parent Teacher Coalition on this decision:
Somerset County BOE: First County in Maryland to Comply with Federal Laws to End DEI Policies
Some claim they were the first county in the country to do so.
This clearly irked the State Superintendent and other Democrats in deep blue Maryland. Now, they are pulling out all the stops in targeting the Somerset County School Board, in particular President Matthew Lankford and Vice President Andrew Gleason.
Somerset County Superintendent, Ava Tasker-Mitchell, agreed with the Dems and allegedly ignored that board decision and promoted DEI in the district, risking the loss of federal funding to the Somerset County Public Schools.
That wasn’t the only problem with Tasker-Mitchell, who was hired in July 2024, before some of the current members of the board were seated. Somerset County is at the bottom of test score rankings in the State of Maryland. On recent 5th grade Maryland Comprehensive Program tests, 5th graders in Somerset scored 30.1% students proficient in reading, 12.1% proficient in math, and 10.6 proficient in science. On that same test, Maryland 5th graders were at 44.2% proficient in reading, 40% in math, and 23.95 in science. Somerset is 24th out of 24 districts, even lower than Baltimore City. While Maryland scores are abysmal overall, Somerset County’s are the worst.
According to sources, Tasker-Mitchell has proposed no policies nor programs to address the disastrous academic deficits.
So, aside from being insubordinate of Board policies, she appeared to have had no interest in improving academics in the county. It reminds many of how leadership in other failing counties/cities in the state ignore the improvement of our children’s education while they promote political agendas and spend billions of dollars to do so.
When the school board hired new legal representation, Gordana and Marc Schifinelli, members of the board began to understand not only their rights as elected school board members but their responsibilities as well. Beyond deciding to fire Tasker-Mitchell, they demanded to see the curriculum programs and materials being purchased for the students before they approved them.
Somerset County BOE Engages New Legal Representation – The Easton Gazette
One of these programs, the SAVAS Language Arts program, was promoted by the county’s English Language Arts supervisor for purchase. However, the board wanted to take a long look at the program to make sure it did not violate the county’s 2008 anti-bias policy. Apparently, the supervisor in question wasn’t interested in letting them do that. So, the board voted against purchasing it. Here is the link to the SAVAS website:
K-12 Learning | Education Curriculum | Savvas Learning Company
What’s interesting about this company is they promote a program that State Superintendent Carey Wright promoted shortly after her appointment. It’s called the Science of Reading and Wright demanded all counties use it by convincing the State Board of Education to draft this resolution:
Above: From the SAVAS website. SAVAS used to be PEARSON EDUCATION. PEARSON created many of the standardized tests used in the United States.
At the time, we wrote about the possible conflicts of interest because of this mandate.
The Problems With A Mandated Maryland STATE Curriculum – The Easton Gazette
Is this one of these conflicts? Perhaps.
The Maryland Inspector General Richard Henry inserted himself into county curriculum decisions by telling Somerset County they need to purchase SAVAS or lose a $10 million dollar state grant for the program. It was a grant the Somerset County School Board was unaware of because Tasker-Mitchell. The County Board has not been able to see all the lessons and reading materials that are involved in the SAVAS language arts program and were never notified about the grant and its requirements. Coincidently, the grant showed up immediately after the Somerset Board sent the letter regarding Tasker-Mitchell’s termination for cause. An even bigger mystery is why the Maryland Inspector General, who does not decide what is taught in schools, suddenly involved himself in this issue. Was the state piling on Somerset in an attempt to remove elected officials?
In fact, Board members were told that, according to state law, they did not have the right to review proposed media materials or books being purchased by the county. This is due to the “Freedom to Read” Act passed in the Maryland Legislature in 2024. Using this law, the IG also made an implied threat that board members who voted against the SAVAS program adoption might lose their seats on the board.
Maryland Legislators Send Flawed “Freedom to Read” Bill to Governor – The Easton Gazette
The state has removed the right of elected school boards to control which materials the children in their district have access to, even if the materials are inappropriate, racist or pornographic. School boards are elected to keep harmful materials out of schools as part of their responsibilities.
The State of Maryland is ignoring the fact that elected school boards have the right and responsibility to hire and fire the one employee that directly works and answers to them. They have made county Superintendents, particularly Tasker-Mitchell, privileged employees of special status who are above any direct accountability from their employers, elected school boards. Even more critical is that now the State Superintendent has the power to stay ANY decision a school board makes for an unlimited duration.
Taken to its logical conclusion, this situation in Somerset County can and probably will affect all other school districts in Maryland. As school board elections have become more competitive and more conservatives are being elected, the Democrat super majority in the state and the Teachers Union are realizing that they may lose control of the disastrous monopoly they have on the Maryland public schools. By empowering an unelected bureaucrat ideologue like Carey Wright to virtually nullify the votes of citizens and run rough shod over the rights of communities to run their school systems, they will neuter local school boards. Thus, local control of what children learn in our communities will be handed over to unelected state officials who have no understanding of what works in these communities. Nor will they care.
We encourage everyone to write the Maryland State Board of Education as well as to contact the U.S. Department of Education. Citizens of Somerset have asked representatives in their district for help including State Senator Mary Beth Carozza and Congressman Andy Harris to no avail. In fact, it is alleged that Carozza promoted and encouraged Tasker-Mitchell to appeal her firing and for the rules to be changed. Mid-term elections are in a little over a year, and any politician who turns a blind eye to this situation should not get the support of those who believe in local control of schools.
Contact Us | U.S. Department of Education
Contact Secretary of Education Linda McMahon of whitehouse | Official Contact Information
Contact | Congressman Andy Harris
ma**************@*************nd.gov
-Jan Greenhawk
We will continue to monitor this story.
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