Howard County Education Association President's Email Access Cut Off

Howard County Education Association President Paul Lemle, an outspoken opponent of proposed , has been locked out of his Howard County Public School System email account at the direction of  Superintendent Sydney Cousin, according to the school system's IT department.

"It's like the school system's leadership has crawled into a bunker on this," Lemle said Friday of the middle school to middle schools' schedule and instructional content. "They feel like they're being attacked on this and that couldn't be further from the truth."

On Thursday, before a Board of Education meeting and public hearing on the middle school proposal, Lemle sent out an email to the elected school board that contained prepared testimony he planned to deliver at the hearing.

The meeting was packed with teachers, parents and students, all of whom spoke out against the middle school proposal, according to Lemle.

Because of the timing of that email coinciding with his access to the school system's email account being shut down, Lemle said he believes the email was the reason.

"So with the bunker mentality of the school system's leadership, they cut off my email this morning so I can't communicate with my members," Lemle said.

There is an explicit email policy that forbids users from disagreeing with school system policy via the email system, known as CLC, Lemle said.

"But this isn't policy," he said. "This is a proposal being presented to the Board of Education for its consideration."

Lemle said he informed school board members of his exclusion from the email system.

Board member Allen Dyer sent an email to Michael Borkoski in the school system's IT department, asking for "an expedited effort to resolve the communication problem between HCEA [Howard County Education Association] and CLC."

In his response to Dyer Friday, Borkoski wrote, "Mr. Lemle's CLC account was disabled yesterday per the direction of the superintendent."

Lemle provided Patch with copies of the emails.

Cousin is out of the office until Wednesday, according to school officials.

Deputy Superintendent Mamie Perkins, asked about the email issue, said, "No comment."

Lemle said the closed account won't cripple the association's efforts.

"We're working on a different communication system right now," Lemle said. "It will interfere for a while, but I'll get out and pound the pavement, get the private email addresses I need and we'll be back in business next week."

Lemle said the decision to cut off his email will just make things worse for the school system's administration.

The organization will build an external email system and stop using the internal system, he said.

"Building our own system isn't an 'if,' it's a 'when,'" Lemle said. "Then they will never know what we're talking about."

Students are taught to make their best arguments and challenge ideas when they need to be challenged, Lemle said.

School system leaders need to do the same, he said.

"They're in a bunker," he said. "They need to crawl out and talk to me."

HCEA is a membership organization that represents more than 5,000 certificated educators and paraprofessionals, according to its website.

Lemle, a teacher at Wilde Lake High School, is the elected president. He receives released time from the classroom to lead the organization on a full-time basis.