Howard County Superintendent Renee Foose told a Board of Education meeting last week that the system used was ‘not functioning as it was originally intended’.
According to a report in the Baltimore Sun, Ms Foose added: ‘We're shifting to a more reliant outside counsel model for all legal matters. The exclusive use of outside counsel is in the best interest of the school system to avoid conflicts of interest, or the perception of conflicts of interest.’
Administrative decisions
From 1 October, all in-house legal counsel positions at the authority’s central office will be eliminated, with general counsel Mark Blom and Staff Attorney Dan Furman also set to leave.
Mr Blom and Mr Furman are yet to comment on the matter. However, Mr Blom did take issue with a Yahoo message board post by Board of Education member Allen Dyer, who said that the decision to use outside counsel ‘will ensure that administrative decisions are made by administrators at the local and central office levels, rather than relying on a decision by an in-house lawyer.’
Mr Blom said the statement was ‘completely inaccurate’ and ‘shows a lack of understanding of my position and how I worked with administrators’.
‘I think I gave (school administrators) a lot of good judgements, but they made the decisions,’ Mr Blom said.
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