A Baltimore County School board member whose controversial censure was overturned is now focused on moving forward. However, Maggie Litz Domanowski says the school board has become divided.
And that division could be due, in part, to a Fox45 News investigation that found the public support certain school board members relied on to uphold the censure, appears to have been fake.
Domanowski was censured following a seemingly unremarkable incident that occurred during a Baltimore County Board of Education meeting in January of this year. During the meeting, Domanowski asked BCPS Superintendent Dr. Myriam Rogers about the budget.
“Career and College Readiness,” Domanowski remarked during the January meeting.
“What page are you referring to?” Questioned Rogers.
“It’s in your budget,” responded Domanowski. “You cut it by 50% this year.”
For a few seconds, Rogers stared intently at Domanowski before responding, “So, I would request which page we’re speaking of.”
The exchange does not appear significant. But weeks later, in March, the board voted 7-4 to censure Domanowski for exhibiting a “lack of courtesy and decorum” towards the superintendent.
ALSO READ |
“I take the budget really seriously because it’s a lot of money,” Domanowski explained to Project Baltimore. “I really didn’t think I said anything wrong.”
Shortly after the vote, as Domanowski planned to appeal her censure to the Maryland State Board of Education, a virtual campaign targeting her was created on Ujoin. Ujoin is an online advocacy platform designed to gain support for causes. The campaign, “A Call for Civility and Accountability”, was rallying support for the continued censure of Domanowski.
“Somebody wants me gone and it’s sad and I don’t know why are you focusing that much energy to get rid of a board member?” Stated Domanowski.
Project Baltimore obtained the Ujoin list of supposed emails sent in support of Domanowski’s censure. The Ujoin campaign, based on the records obtained by Project Baltimore, was active for 11 days from March 22 to April 1. In that time, 360 total emails were sent through Ujoin and received by the Baltimore County Board of Education.
But the timing of most of the emails raises questions. On March 23, in a 10-minute period starting at 11:04 am, 261 of the 360 emails were sent. Nearly 73% of all the emails over a 11-day period were sent in just 10 minutes.
ALSO READ |
“It appears just by simply looking at the numbers that somebody was trying to create what appeared to be a large-scale effort to have you censured or removed from the board.” Stated Project Baltimore’s Chris Papst to Domanowski.
“Yes,” replied Domanowski. “It’s absolutely fake.”
Project Baltimore took a closer look and found many of the emails are not real email addresses. For instance, there were emails with the domain name “gmail.comd”. Another domain was “gmail.comm”. One email ends in just “gmail”. Another ends in just “aol”. There’s no “.com”. There was also “yahoo.con”, “ail.com” and “gmail.co”.
Project Baltimore sent an email to many of the addresses asking for an interview to discuss the censure. We received seven replies. Four people wished not to comment. One person said they signed the petition but declined an interview. Two people wrote back saying they did not sign the petition.
Domanowski, in April, contacted Ujoin, which shut down the campaign for violating the website’s “terms of use”. In August, the Maryland State Board of Education heard Domanowski’s appeal and reversed “the local board’s censure decision as an egregious abuse of discretion.”
“That decision they made is the most aggressive or strongest opposing of a solution, a resolution by a board I’ve ever seen,” Domanowski explained. “Our board wasn’t openly divided until that moment. Now there’s a clear division where it feels like us versus them. And it’s very sad because we’re supposed to be there for students.”
Domanowski told Fox45 News she’s not looking to learn who started that Ujoin account, or who falsely added emails and names to the petition. She just wants to move on. And she hopes her fellow board members do too.