Former MCPS superintendent discusses firing, launches campaign for school board

CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. (WDBJ) - The Montgomery County School Board fired former superintendent Mark Miear in March 2022.

Since then, Miear says he hasn’t, legally, been allowed to discuss what happened. Now, all bets are off and Miear is sharing his side of the story.

“I want folks to know the truth and I gave them the truth,” Maier said.

Tuesday night, he spoke his mind at the MCPS School Board meeting for the first time since his firing.

“As for Mark, Sue and Penny, as superintendent, working with you was unbearable,” Miear said at the meeting. “You rarely mentioned students as a basis of your decisions, if you disagreed you found it acceptable to treat me and others with disrespect.”

Miear admits he got upset with MCPS School Board Deputy Superintendent Annie Whitaker during a March 10, 2022, discussion about the changing of his child’s name in school. He was told that argument is what led to his firing.

“I never talked to the school board, they never called me in” Miear said. “If there are other things that occurred, I don’t know what they are, because I never talked to the board about them.”

In the last 10 months, Maier says he realized he still has more to give and is now running for Montgomery County School Board in District B.

“I have definitely learned that the school board is important for the success of a school division and the superintendent who’s leading it,” he said. “Now I’d like no more than to help the current superintendent and help him be successful.”

WDBJ7 has reached out to all members of the Montgomery County School Board and was told the board is not ready to comment on the situation.

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