Weast tries to strangle PTA outreach

Superintendent Jerry Weast has begun his counterattack on local Parent Teacher Association (PTA) groups.

That's how parents see his total ban on all PTA literature from being sent home to children in their backpacks.

The PTA at Seven Locks Elementary School and other schools and clusters in Montgomery County defeated Weast's controversial and possibly illegal plan to shut down a thriving school and build a mega-school on a wooded area that the community didn't want.

Weast, his $350,000-a-year contract in jeopardy when it expires next year, is fighting to save his job.

A countywide PTA leader calls Weast's move "devastating."

"It's going to have a devastating effect on communication for PTAs to parents," Jane deWinter, president of the Montgomery County Council of Parent Teacher Associations, tells the Washington Post. "We're very, very concerned about this."