Principal resigns after making ‘smash space’ where teachers pummeled frustrations w/ bats

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WASHINGTON – Less than a week after apologizing for having set up a “smash space” for teachers, the principal of Kensington Parkwood Elementary School, in Montgomery County, is stepping down.

In a letter to parents, Barbara Liess said “recent events have been a distraction” at the elementary school. She will stay on through the end of the academic year, on June 30.

The “smash space” was a place on the school’s loading dock for teachers to take out their frustrations on furniture with baseball bats. Leiss wrote to parents last week that she “got the idea after reading some business articles” abut companies doing the same thing. She called it “a lapse in judgment.”

It wasn’t the first controversy Liess ran into while at the school. In January, Liess was named in an ethics complaint over her work as a Realtor, having taken on several employees as clients. Liess gave up her Realtor’s license after getting complaints about her work outside the school.

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