Response From Attorney General 4-12-08

DOUGLAS

ELIZABETH

F. GANSLER

M. KAMEEN

Principal Counsel

Attorney General KATHERINE WINFREE

Chief Deputy Attorney General JOHN

B. HOWARD, JR.

STATE OF MARYLAND

Deputy Attorney General

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL MARYLAND STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

April 11, 2008

Patrick Hoover

600 Jefferson Plaza, Suite 308

Rockville, Maryland 20852

Dear Mr. Hoover: Thank you for your letter to Dr. Nancy S. Grasmick, State Superintendent of Schools, and to Dunbar Brooks, President of the Maryland State Board of Education. They have asked that I respond on their behalf. In your letter, you request guidance on whether parents andlor their counsel may tape record a student expulsion conference. Attached to your letter is a brief Memorandum that sets forth the rules and regulations governing expulsion hearings in the Montgomery County Public School System. You explain that tape recordings of expulsion conferences are not specifically banned by those rules. The rules require the school system to make a stenographic record of the proceedings. You further explain that school officials have stated that they would likely deny permission to tape record the expulsion meeting.

As you know, each county school board and superintendent is empowered to administer its public school system and adopt rules for the conduct and management of the county public schools. Md. Educ. Code Ann. §§ 4-101; 4-108; 4-204; 4-205. It is within the original jurisdictional purview of the county superintendent to decide all controversies and disputes involving the rules and regulations of the county board. Id. § 4-205. Because it is the rules and regulations of Montgomery County School System about which you seek guidance, that request should be made to the local school system. Thank you for your letter and for your advocacy for students in the Maryland public schools. Sincerely,

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Elivatieth M. Kameen Assistant Attorney General Principal Counsel Maryland State Department of Education

200 Saint Paul Place .:. Baltimore, Maryland 21202-2021

Telephone (410) 576-6465 .:. D.C. Metro (301) 470-7534 .:. Fax (410) 576-6309

Telephone for the Deaf (410) 576-6372

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Tony South Dunbar Brooks Dr. Jerry Weast wcs#21102

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