About
Our goal is to provide accurate and timely information to parents and residents on curriculums, policies, materials, state education standards, legislation, and school and county activities in an effort to build trust and collaboration between the community and the FCPS, and to provide assistance to parents that allows them to make the best choices for their child’s education and development.
We are collaborating with similar groups in other parts of Maryland and have formed a strong partnership with the efforts in Montgomery County to share resources, information, and legislative proposals. We are not aligned with any political party and are attempting to work with the Frederick County BOE to transition the current outdated model of interaction between the BOE and the community to one that operates more as partners with a common goal; the successful academic and life skills education and development of the students of Frederick County.
The team is made up of a core group of advisors, parents, and volunteers. Please email us here if you’re interested in helping.
Founder
Jim Lehmann is a recently retired executive with Citigroup where he was responsible for regulatory compliance, in-business control, and operational risk for Citigroup’s Commercial Bank headquartered in New York City, where he also led the Business Risk Committee and the anti-money laundering team. Over his 35 year career Jim has worked in a number of locations in the United States and internationally, taking on assignments that focused on growing businesses, improving operational efficiency and financial control. During this time Jim developed a strong interest in education as he co-developed and taught management courses at Citigroup on leadership, problem-solving, and advanced root cause analysis, and worked with community groups to make financial education more available to school age children. In 2000, after finishing up a multi-year assignment in Germany, Jim and his family decided to establish some permanent roots and settled in Frederick county in the Holly Hills community where Jim and his family still live.
In January of this year Jim began the development of the Transparency in Education Program after learning about the Department of Justice findings on the FCPS released in late 2021 and researching how such a systemic failure in oversight and accountability might be impacting the school system and education in general. As a result of that research and the input of dozens of parents Jim and a small group of residents landed on four primary conclusions: the academic proficiency rates in Maryland public schools and specifically in Frederick County have been declining steadily since 2014; the design and structure of the FCPS (and virtually every school system in Maryland) had created an unintended buffer between the community and the BOE that worked directly against any efforts to work and communicate collaboratively and as equal partners with a common goal; parents felt ignored as detailed Information and problem resolution assistance they felt was critical was difficult to obtain; and how far the curriculums, programs, policies, and decisions of the BOE, the BOE committees, and the Maryland State Department of Education had shifted away from academics and into social, cultural, and behavioral development. The Transparency in Education program is designed with these things in mind with the dual goal of building transparency for residents of Frederick County and a stronger partnership between the FCPS and the community.