Acting schools chief named
Howard County’s Board of Education has selected Bill Barnes to serve as acting superintendent of the Howard County Public School System, beginning Jan. 10. Current Superintendent Michael Martirano will retire on that date.
According to the school board’s contract with Barnes, effective Jan. 10 to June 30, he will receive an annual salary of $276,000 as acting superintendent and a $1,000 monthly car allowance.
Martirano announced his retirement Nov. 17, despite having almost three years left in a four-year contract with the school system. Martirano was named superintendent in July 2018 after serving more than a year as interim superintendent, and the school board voted in February 2022 to renew his contract through 2026 at an annual salary of $290,743.
HCPSS spokesperson Brian Bassett said the school system had no comment regarding possible reasons for the superintendent’s resignation.
Martirano’s exit comes after months of criticism from parents and community members about how the school system handled a change to school start times, and a cut to bus service for thousands of students.
To implement later start times at county high schools in August, the school board approved a series of transportation overhauls including expanding student walk zones and mandating bus rider registration. About 1,350 elementary students, 800 middle schoolers and 1,200 high schoolers lost bus service as a result of new zones drawn up by school system staff and approved by the board.
Despite Martirano’s statement in an Aug. 10 memo that all bus routes would be covered on the first day of school, dozens of canceled bus routes plagued the system in August and September, causing some students to arrive late to school and others to lose bus service altogether. Martirano and the school board blamed staffing issues with new contractor Zum Services for the disruption.
Barnes has been the chief academic officer for the school system since 2017, and in that role oversees the departments of Special Education, Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, and Program Innovation and Student Well-Being.
Barnes began his career with the school system in 2008, as coordinator of secondary mathematics and director of secondary and PreK-12 curricular programs. Before that, he worked as a high school math teacher.
“When we thought about what was best for the students and staff right now, the board agreed that Mr. Barnes’ history and experience could lead our system well,” school board chair Jennifer Swickard Mallo said in a news release. “Mr. Barnes knows the system, people, and culture of Howard County schools and students. His leadership and teaching experience will help him seamlessly transition into this role.”
Mallo said the board would conduct “a thorough nationwide search” for a permanent superintendent to replace Martirano.
Martirano was selected as the acting chief of the Howard County school system when former Superintendent Renee Foose resigned in May 2017. At the time, the school agreed to pay Foose $1.13 million in “post-termination payments,” plus $171,000 for her retirement, $278,000 for her pension and $65,000 for her unused days off. The board also agreed to provide Foose lifelong health benefits equal to those received by retirees of Howard County schools. The agreement settled months of public feuding and behind-the-scene negotiations between the board and Foose, who served as superintendent for five years.