Petition for Judicial Review filed
One Crofton, along with its president, today filed a Petition for Judicial Review in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court in response to the Maryland State Board of Education’s (the “State Board”) baffling dismissal of its redistricting appeal on standing grounds, preventing the case from proceeding to the Office of Administrative Hearings. The State Board made this decision despite never receiving a response from AACPS in response to One Crofton’s brief in opposition to the motion to dismiss and never receiving the full record of the proceedings before the AACPS Board.
“The decision of the State Board of Education would leave any neutral party asking what it is afraid of,” said One Crofton President Michael Chittenden. “Despite the initial appeal clearly stating that One Crofton’s members are parents of students affected by the Anne Arundel Board of Education’s Phase 2 redistricting decision and a subsequent affidavit submitted in the appeal stating that One Crofton has more than 140 members who are parents of children whose school assignments were changed or will be changed by the redistricting plan, the State Board voted under cover of executive session to dismiss the appeal rather than to allow the merits to be heard because it could not ‘factually ascertain’ whether One Crofton’s members were injured by the redistricting decision.”
One Crofton notes there is no statute, State Board regulation, or prior State Board decision that would require One Crofton to provide a list of names, addresses, or assigned schools to establish standing to pursue an administrative appeal. Indeed, the State Board’s decision does not cite one. One Crofton asserts that it satisfied the requirements for standing in its appeal. The original appeal was signed by One Crofton’s president, whose son has been redistricted, and included his address, which AACPS’s own redistricting website indicates is affected by the redistricting plan. Combined with the affidavit provided, it is clear that One Crofton’s members are parents whose children have been harmed by AACPS’s redistricting plan.
By dodging the merits, the State Board avoids having an administrative law judge scrutinize AACPS’s enrollment projections, about which independent experts raise serious questions.
“The appeal filed by One Crofton raises very serious questions about how local boards of education across Maryland make enrollment projections and whether those boards of education can manipulate the projections to try to game state funding laws to the detriment of students,” said Chittenden. “It appears the State Board of Education would prefer to cover their collective eyes and pretend that this group of more than 140 parents in the affected attendance area simply aren’t parents rather than address the very real and important questions this appeal raises.”
“The appeal stated multiple times that One Crofton’s members are families that are directly harmed by the appealed redistricting decision,” said Patrick Seidel of Silverman Thompson, counsel for One Crofton. “That is what the law requires. The next step should have been a hearing where the data could be examined. Instead, the appeal was summarily dismissed before the merits were ever reached. The State Board’s decision is legally without merit, and we expect it to be quickly reversed.”
The original appeal challenged the County Board’s decision to impose split articulation on the Nantucket Elementary attendance area, alleging reliance on flawed enrollment projections and mischaracterized state construction funding criteria. None of those claims were heard.
“When the board of education requests that a case be dismissed, the State Board is required to view the facts stated in the appeal in the light most favorable to the parents filing the appeal. The law does not require the appellant prove every claim in the filings—that is what a hearing is for. That the State Board chose to dismiss the case based on a purported factual dispute by assuming the facts stated in the appellant’s filing are untrue is truly perplexing. One can only assume that they hoped that by doing so, the State Board intended to continue to burden the affected families with additional time, expense, and emotional pain just to reach a hearing in the hopes that the families’ persistence will fade,” Seidel added.
One Crofton, together with its president, is also now forced to seek a stay from the circuit court to preserve the status quo, and has asked the court to review the merits of the appeal because sending the case back to the State Board would appear to be futile given that the State Board chose to dismiss the appeal even though the AACPS Board of Education
(1) failed to even respond to the State Board’s demand that it file a reply to One Crofton’s brief in opposition to the motion to dismiss and
(2) never submitted the record as required under State Board regulations, which was due in January.
“Our families’ kids were redistricted. We will not stand by while AACPS and the State Board pretend otherwise,” said Mike Chittenden, President of One Crofton. “We live here. We put our names behind this appeal. The record shows this decision was made on flawed data and a misunderstanding of state law. We believe it was irrational and unlawful, and we believe the State Board knows that. If the State Board won’t allow for a full airing of the facts, a court must.”
