Somerset County, Md. — The Somerset County Board of Education approved $300,000 in legal funding for board chair Matt Lankford as he potentially faces a second removal process with the Maryland Department of Education. The department confirmed to WMDT that it had received seven complaints requesting Lankford’s removal, including from the Maryland State Education Association (MSEA).
The funding set aside for Lankford’s defense comes from the annual budget and is set aside to retain counsel for board members facing litigation related to their official duties as per Maryland Education Article 4-104.
The complaints stemmed from Lankford’s alleged conduct since taking office in 2025 but largely focused on a tense interaction during a Aug. 18 board meeting where Lankford publicly questioned Somerset Education Association (SEA) president Phaedra Spencer over posts made to the SEA Facebook account regarding controversial changes to Somerset County Media Policy 500-19.
“The Somerset County Board of Education’s actions to prevent students from reading age-appropriate books and to silence legitimate concerns are extreme and out of control. We filed a complaint with the State Board of Education requesting the removal of the board chair for misconduct and filed an Unfair Labor Practice with the Maryland Public Employee Relations Board regarding his public intimidation of local educators who have concerns about the legality and consequences of this policy,” MSEA Executive Director Sean Johnson said in a statement to WMDT. “Along with the ACLU of Maryland and Maryland Association of School Librarians, we filed a formal appeal to the State Board of Education asking them to reject this extreme policy as a violation of the Maryland Freedom to Read Act. Our students deserve to have a wide range of age-appropriate books, and we’ll continue to stand up to protect the rights of students and educators.”
During the meeting Lankford shared the policies relating to employee social media use before spending nearly 20 minutes questioning Spencer. SEA attorney Jamie Sapia interrupted the questioning to accuse Lankford of unfair labor practices. Sapia was then escorted out of the meeting and questioning resumed.
Lankford previously faced removal proceedings in 2025 due to his alleged conduct in office and was ultimately not removed by the education department.
The department did not several concerns and offered warnings to Lankford regarding conduct they observed.
“While the State Board is not issuing charges at this time, it remains seriously concerned about the pattern of conduct observed and urges Mr. Lankford to reflect carefully on his role and responsibilities as the Chair of the local board. Continued behavior of this nature may lead the Board to consider formal action in the future,” the department wrote in its 2025 decision.
Gordana Schifanelli, a school board attorney, refuted claims of wrongdoing by Lankford in a statement to WMDT. She added that the complaints are retaliatory against Lankford after he was not removed last year.
“Nothing Chairman Lankford did has to do with MSEA or its affiliate SEA’s labor union agreements which in itself shows that SEA has exceeded its legal authority to interfere into the normal and orderly statutory duty of the Board,” Schifanelli wrote to WMDT.
Schifanelli wrote that she encourages people to follow the work done by the Somerset County Public school team and the school board.
Full Statement from School Board Attorney Gordana Schifanelli, Esq. —
MSEA’s behaviour towards Somerset County Board of Education and its Chairman is nothing new and can be best summarized as hateful and vile.
It dates back to 2025 and Chairman Lankford’s appointment to be the chair and his winning the election in the fall of 2024.
He is a native of Somerset County and has made his mission to uncover why has Somerset County been the worst public education system in Maryland. One can only imagine where the roads would lead.
Previous Superintendent refused to work with the new chairman due to his attempts to obtain the budget records at first and then as the time went by the vision of the Board was sharply contrasted with the opposite vision of the Superintendent especially when it came to root causes for academic failures.
Prior Superintendent filed charges to remove the Chairman and MSEA members joined her in removal which failed. The first removal accused the Board and chairman Lankford for removing books and their argument was surrounded around the old 500-19 library media policy. Chairman Lankford was accused of being “rude”, “disrespectful” because of the manner in which he speaks. His “tone” was not nice.
As a result of this charge Chairman Lankford had to hire a separate attorney to represent him and under Maryland Education Article, when a member of the board faces legal challenges arising from his duties as a board member, the Board is authorised to cover his reasonable attorneys fees.
The entire removal of the Chairman failed miserably because the MSDE may not remove lawfully elected representatives because someone considers them to be “rude” which is subjective opinion not a fact. Most of the allegations were false: like the one where Chairman Lankford wanted to impose his own “home grown curriculum” when in fact the Board was deciding whether to adopt “HMH or Saavas My Perspectives” -MSDE curriculum. Chaos in the community was created based on rumours and false information over “losing $10 million dollars grant and home-grown curriculum”. All was false.
Furthermore, chairman Lankford is an individual with disabilities and has speech impediment which can some times be considered “rude” or “loud”.
Since that attempt failed the MSEA filed charges of removal this time as retaliation against chairman Lankford’s questioning Somerset County supervisors.
The Board wanted to ensure transparency especially in light of false, deceptive and malicious statements published by the SEA on their website to the parents and students that “The Board is banning Anne Franks, Harry Potter and To Kill a Mockingbird” which is false.
Ms Spenser who admitted posting the content is the very librarian who participated and personally selected over 1071 titles which the Board approved unanimously just few weeks earlier.
The Board approved total budget for all legal fees in the amount of $300,000.
As I explained earlier, the amount is anticipated through June 2027 due to abnormal legal expenses created by MSEA and their SEA affiliate as well as their proxies.
Their new mission is to impose marketing pitch and force the Board to define minors as “young adults” contrary to Maryland law and COMAR definitions. The librarians want the Board to ignore Maryland state definition of young adults – age 18-23 and call minors age 12-18 also “young adults”. Since the Board is the one who sets the policy and decides to comply with Maryland law, the MSEA/SEA accused Chairman Lankford for violating the U.S. Constitution and Freedom to Read act. Not a single book was removed by Chairman Lankford or the Board and no one violated any law but that didn’t stop MSEA from filing lawsuits.
Mr. Tilghman, Esq. has represented Chairman Lankford last year and this lawsuit by MSEA is pure retaliation for the Board’s work and Chairman’s decision to question all employees who have supervisory duties to explain why is Somerset County student growth and proficiency the worst in the state of Maryland.
Nothing Chairman Lankford did has to do with MSEA or its affiliate SEA’s labor union agreements which in itself shows that SEA has exceeded its legal authority to interfere into the normal and orderly statutory duty of the Board.
The board’s decision to bring before the public explanation by library media specialists, ELA specialists explaining this time what needs to happen for the students to improve their reading and ELA is also informative and helpful so the Board will continue to do their job in the most open and transparent manner and SEA can continue to oppose, sabotage and attempt to destroy the Board’s mission to help students become optimistic, smart and productive members of the society.
I highly encourage everyone to watch incredible work done by the entire SCPS team and the board.
