A candidate for Ocean City Board of Education in the Nov. 4 election was issued a letter of warning at the Maryland school where he served as vice principal following an incident involving physical and verbal interactions with a disruptive student in 2011.

The candidate, Robin Shaffer, who was working at Calvert Elementary School in Prince Frederick at the time, twice appealed the letter, which says Shaffer’s actions were “clearly inappropriate,” to Maryland’s state-level Board of Education, and twice the board upheld the letter.

Shaffer denies wrongdoing and says that the issue is being circulated again to smear his campaign ahead of the election. The Calvert County Board of Education said in the letter that his actions were an “aberration” in his career.

The incident over which the letter was issued occurred on Oct. 18, 2011, when Shaffer was called in to deal with a disruptive first-grade student in the school’s health room. The incident is outlined in detail in Maryland State Board of Education Opinion 12-57, issued in response to Shaffer’s appeal, where he claimed the investigation of the incident by the Calvert County Board of Education was not conducted properly or fairly.

Shaffer, according to the opinion, “was questioning the student in the health room while the two were sitting on a sick bed,” and he “got into a ‘power struggle’ with the student and lost control of the situation.”

According to a firsthand witness who worked at the school, “The student attempted several times to stand up from the sick bed,” and each time Shaffer “yanked the student back down to a sitting position with such force” that the witness worried that “the student would hit his head on the cinderblock wall behind him.”

The witness claims to have seen Shaffer “stand up, grab the student’s wrist, pull his arm above his head and drag the student through the school office and into his office and shut the door.” Three other witnesses say that they heard Shaffer yell at the student behind the closed door.

Shaffer said that he stands by his actions that day, and that his decision to appeal was supported by his teachers union.

He shared his memory of the incident in a statement sent to the Herald. He said that the student in question was a “runner” and several times ran out of the school building, located next to a busy highway.

He said that the student had become “violent” and, in response, he said, “I verbally de-escalated the situation and escorted the student to my office, holding his hand as we walked. Once there, I verbally reprimanded him.”

“I was never docked any pay, I was never suspended,” Shaffer said in a phone call to the Herald. “Nothing went against me; there were no marks against my certification. I felt like it was unmerited, so I decided to appeal it. If I hadn’t appealed it, it would have never risen to the point where people could find it on the internet.”

“It was the only blemish in a career in education that has spanned 33 years,” he said in a written statement. “This recent wave of attacks distracts from the real issues facing our schools. The truth is that Catherine [Panico], Liz [Nicoletti] and I will oppose efforts by the liberal members of the OCBOE, who regularly vote to support the NJEA and NJDOE’s woke agenda.”

Shaffer claimed in the two appeals to the state board that the investigation was conducted improperly and “that he was the subject of rumors at Calvert Elementary and that individuals were defaming him.”

The Maryland State Board of Education said that “when asked to provide more details so that his allegations could be investigated, he did not provide any additional information.”

Shaffer said that a local group opposed to his candidacy spread the letter of warning to local media in an attempt to discredit his reputation.

“Unfortunately, this issue has been recently revived by a group with clear political motives,” Shaffer told the Herald in a statement.

Shaffer, Panico and Nicoletti are facing school board President Kevin Barnes, Jennifer Cawley-Black and Jennifer Dwyer for three seats on the Ocean City Board of Education in the Nov. 4 election.

Contact the author, Collin Hall, at 609-886-8600, ext. 156.