School official under fire for Black Lives Matter support

CENTREVILLE, Md. (AP) — An email message that Andrea Kane, the superintendent of schools in Queen Anne’s County, sent to parents at the end of the 2019-2020 school year started out unremarkably, listing achievements for the year and the dates of coming events.

Then it pivoted into less familiar terrain, at least on Maryland’s largely conservative Eastern Shore. Kane called for more and better dialogue on racism in the county and voiced support for Black Lives Matter.

Those calls have left Kane, the county’s first Black superintendent, embroiled in controversy and fighting for her job.

A Facebook group with more than 2,000 members, the Kent Island Patriots, accuses her of breaking the law. Many are angrily calling for her removal. The county school board, an all-white group of five, has largely been silent on the controversy.

Kane says she’ll enter the school year with her usual enthusiasm “for all students, no matter their background,” but she has no idea where the dispute will lead over the next 12 months, the last ones in her four-year contract.

“It’s a difficult and divisive time in Queen Anne’s County,” she said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun, her voice both somber and resigned. “It’s beyond unfortunate. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

The controversy began June 5, the last day of school, when Kane hit the “send” button on the six-paragraph email.

A Baltimore native now in her 30th year in education, Kane says she sees it as part of her duty to encourage conversation about race and racism, particularly during this period many have termed a time of national reckoning in the wake of the deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and other Black Americans at the hands of police this year.

In the email, she mentioned instances...