School board members write to lobby against White

One week after the Baltimore County school board voted to give interim superintendent Verletta White a fouryear contract, two dissenting members rebelled.

In an unusual move, Ann Miller and Kathleen Causey wrote letters to Maryland State Schools Superintendent Karen Salmon in late April, urging her to reject the decision of the board majority.

The Baltimore Sun obtained the letters through a Public Information Act request.

“I implore you to deny the appointment of Verletta White as the permanent superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools,” Miller wrote. “This is not a request I take lightly as a member of the board.”

Miller told Salmon the board had engaged in a “faulty process” that didn’t include a national search for a new leader.

Causey, in her letter, said she was writing as an individual board member and “as a parent of a student in Baltimore County Public Schools.”

“The Board of Education did not perform the due diligence nor proper process required for one of the most important decisions entrusted to us,” Causey wrote in a four-page letter.

Miller and Causey pointed out that White violated ethics rules by failing to disclose a consulting job with a company that represents education technology firms. And they noted that an audit of how the district awards contracts had not yet been completed.

The board named White interim superintendent last year after Dallas Dance resigned. Dance was later indicted on charges of perjury for allegedly failing to disclose nearly $147,000 he earned from consulting jobs. He pleaded guilty and is serving a sixmonth sentence in a Virginia jail.

Salmon informed the board in a letter dated April 27 that she was declining White’s appointment.

The school board resubmitted White’s name for consideration. Salmon did not approve it.

The board then appointed White to another one-year term as interim superintendent, beginning in July.