UPDATE: Somerset Co. Public Schools supt. reinstated after unexpected termination

SOMERSET CO., Md. – Somerset County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Ava-Tasker Mitchell has been reinstated after she was unexpectedly terminated from the position Thursday. President of the Somerset Education Association, Randi Merritt, has confirmed with WMDT that the Maryland State Board of Education has issued a stay order over the firing.

Tasker-Mitchell was in the first year of her four-year contract and oversaw 8 schools in the county.

“We don’t know why she was terminated. What I do know is that the board has not gotten along with the superintendent for the entire school year, they have their own agenda, they have what they want to do with the school system,” said Merritt. “They’re not listening to her, they don’t want to do anything that she wants to do.

Merritt said she believes it revolves around the cuts the board wanted to make that Dr. Tasker-Mitchell ultimately did not want.

“They want to cut our media specialist, they want to cut our vice principals down to one per school, they have things they want to do in the budget that she does not want to do and now that she’s not there, they kind of have free rein,” said Merritt.

There was no assistant superintendent to step in during Tasker-Mitchell’s brief absence.

Merritt says what’s even more puzzling is that SEA members were not directly told about Dr. Tasker-Mitchell’s termination by Board Chairman Matt Lankford.

“I had a group of people at the board office on Tuesday evening preparing to go into a budget session that was abruptly canceled 15 minutes before the session started and as we were leaving, we said what’s going on, there were four police officers there, we couldn’t figure out why they were there, I said what’s going on and one of the police officers told the maintenance workers there that we had to evacuate the building, the superintendent had been fired,” said Merritt.

Somerset County parent Samantha Windsor said she doesn’t think Dr. Tasker-Mitchell was given a chance.

“I think that she had really stepped up,” said Windsor. “She had been in the face of the community for the students by attending a lot of the awards ceremonies and I do think that when certain things were brought to her, she did make good decisions in regards to protecting the students.”

Windsor has one message for the board of education.

“Somerset County Board of Education, you really need to figure out how you are going to put these students at the forefront,” she said. “Stop bringing in your own agendas, stop pretending like those agendas are not self-motivated, and put our students first.”

WMDT reached out to Lankford for comment, and he did not respond. Somerset County Public Schools officials said they could not comment on the employment status of their personnel.

Tasker-Mitchell was appointed as Superintendent in June 2024 and began her term on July 1, 2024.