Aberdeen High Students Peacefully Demonstrate to Support Principal

Aberdeen High School students peacefully demonstrated on Paradise Road in front of the school Monday morning in a show of support for their embattled principal.

Approximately 150 students lined the sidewalk in front of the school, police said. They chanted “Save Mr. S” as cars drove by honking horns about 7:30 a.m. in apparent shows of support.

Principal Tom Szerensits has said he is being forced out of his job. 

Many who spoke on Szerensits’ behalf said he took personal interest in them as students.

“He cares a lot about our school and he cares a lot about our education,” said Diane Masta, a 16-year-old sophomore.

“We like him and he shows a lot of respect for the students,” said Michaela Lumb, 16, also a sophomore.

Students started a Facebook campaign to try to save his job. As of Monday afternoon, there were 900 people who "like" the group, called Save Szerensits.

Students contacted the media, made signs and took to the streets hoping to convince the Harford County Board of Education to allow Szerensits to stay.

The Board of Education will hold a closed session today at 6 p.m. and a regular meeting at 7 p.m. in the Harford County Public Schools A.A. Roberty Building on S. Hickory Avenue in Bel Air.

Board of Education spokeswoman Teri Kranefeld declined to comment because the issue is a personnel matter.

Paul Weintraub, an Aberdeen High alumnus, said he never would have made it without Szerensits. Weintraub’s story dates back to 1977, when he first came to Aberdeen High School.

“After my first set of grades, he realized there was a problem with my reading,” Weintraub said of Szerensits, who was a teacher at the time.

Weintraub has dyslexia.

“My dyslexia isn’t letter dyslexia, it’s word dyslexia. I reverse words,” Weintraub said. “With the proper training, I could learn.”

Weintraub has gone on to become a government employee.

“The majority of his life, he’s given to us,” Weintraub said of Szerensits. “This is an injustice. This is wrong, very wrong.”

John Caldwell Sr., also of Aberdeen, said Szerensits was his freshman English teacher.

“He’s more than a teacher,” Caldwell said. “He’s a friend. He related to the students better than most.”

Szerensits sent a letter home to students with report cards on April 29 that explained that he was called to Superintendent Robert M. Tomback’s office and informed that he would be forced out.

“I was told that I would be reassigned to a different position in Harford County, but not as a principal,” Szerensits wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Patch. “In the course of ten minutes I was not only dismissed, I was demoted.”

Szerensits also said in the letter that it wasn’t his choice to leave.

“Knowing that I have never done anything unethical or negligent in terms of Aberdeen High School, I am having great difficulty in coming to terms with the superintendent’s decision,” Szerensits said. “I love Aberdeen High School. I always have and always will. I believe I have been an effective leader for Aberdeen High School and when I see all of the successes your children have achieved and continue to achieve, I am convinced that I have always done the right thing in terms of representing Aberdeen High School. … I had mistakenly hoped that I would end my career as an Aberdeen Eagle.”

Aberdeen Police Spokesman Lt. Fred Budnick said Monday's demonstration was peaceful but that Paradise Road was temporarily shut down for the students’ safety.

“They were running back and forth across the street so we decided to shut it down,” Budnick said. “We didn’t want anybody to get struck by a vehicle.”

After about an hour Szerensits came out of the school and urged the students to sign in late for school and then go to their next class. The crowd then began to disperse.

“If they’re not in class, obviously it's going to be an unexcused absence,” Kranefeld said. “We just needed to keep them safe and keep them off the street.”

Budnick said there were no incidents.

“They were orderly,” Budnick said.