In a surprising turn of events, the Prince George’s County Board of Education’s swearing-in of new members, scheduled for Monday at 5 p.m., was delayed following a new member filing an injunction with the Circuit Court.
While the annual meeting to elect the board chair and vice chair was still scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in Upper Marlboro, it was moved to Dec. 5 following a unanimous vote of the current board.
“The injunction we filed is to stop the election during the annual meeting, which would select the chair and vice chair,” a source close to the matter told The Informer on the condition of anonymity earlier in the day.
Board of Education Chair Lolita Walker (District 9) kicked off the meeting at 5:34 p.m.
“New members were unable to be sworn in as of today, as the Board of Elections was unable to release the commissions in time for today’s scheduled oath of ceremony,” the board chair said Monday.
Walker, Student Board Member Jamal Jongo and five other board members — Jonathan Briggs (District 2), Pamela Boozer-Strother (District 3), Shayla Adams-Stafford (District 4), Branndon Jackson (District 6), Dr. Kenneth Harris II (District 7) and Madeline LaSalle-Frazier (District 8) — attended the meeting. No public commenters attended the in-person meeting.
The board chair explained the laws necessitating the selection of new leadership on that date.
Walker insisted multiple times that holding the meeting was necessary to follow state laws, which require the selection of a new chair and vice chair on the first Monday in December following an election.
The law also states that a board member is not eligible to serve until qualified by the Board of Elections, leading Adams-Stafford to ask if “qualified” and “certified” are meaningfully different legal terms.
Adams-Stafford requested to table the meeting until the new members were sworn in and her motion was seconded. However, parliamentarian Daisy W. Matthews cited this motion as out of order as this was not deemed an emergency and a quorum was present for the meeting.
The District 4 board member pushed back.
“We have people that have been elected that should have the opportunity to vote for the chair and the vice chair to bring forward initiatives, ideas, and represent the desires of the communities that elected them,” said Adams-Stafford. “I will be voting to postpone this, to allow our new members the opportunity to vote for their leadership. I hope my colleagues will as well.”
Legal counsel Bradley Farrar noted that the meeting structure could be altered, and a compromise was met to hold the selection on Thursday, Dec. 5 at 5 p.m., leading into a previously scheduled meeting. Then, the board unanimously voted to move the meeting and close the business of the day.
If the newly elected members are not certified before the 5 p.m. Dec. 5 gathering concludes, the board will have to cancel the following 7 p.m. business meeting.
Certifying the Election, Vacant Seat
The recent election for the Board of Education has not yet been certified and one seat remains temporarily vacant, while two members who did not win reelection remain seated until further notice.
The board size has decreased as the county has eliminated appointed board members. Jocelyn Route, who served as an At-Large member, officially departed the board on June 27.
While Tiffani Andorful (District 1) and Robin Brown (District 5) maintained relatively large leads against their opponents during the vote tallying process and Adams-Stafford (District 4) ran unopposed, two other races were much narrower.
Zakoyia Goins-McCants defeated Angela Jones by fewer than 50 votes, according to the current unofficial numbers — well within the threshold to have the state Board of Elections cover the cost of a recount.
Phelton Moss defeated incumbent Kenneth Harris II in District 7 by over 2,000 votes, a margin that increased as more voters were counted.
Monday’s decision leaves community members and even duly elected officials in a state of limbo and confusion, awaiting the Dec. 5 meeting.
“We believed the legislative intent was to have this election conducted by the newly-elected members,” the anonymous source told The Informer, “but the new members have not yet been sworn in due to the election results not being certified as of yet.”
Click here to watch the meeting in full.
