Just-retired Outdoor School teacher disputes CCPS board's account of nightly staffing and Hashawha safety incidents

A recently retired Outdoor School teacher is publicly disputing the Carroll County Board of Education's account of the safety incidents it cited when it voted 5-0 last month to end the program's overnight component, including the intruder incident the board offered as its central example of the risks students faced overnight at Hashawha.

Misti Kelly spent the past five years on the Outdoor School's full-time staff, joining in fall 2021 when the program restarted after COVID, and served the eight years before that as an evening substitute.

Earlier in her career, she taught at East Middle School for 12 years, where she accompanied sixth graders to Outdoor School. She decided to retire in February, months before the board's vote, and wrapped up her career at the end of June.

"Most of what the board tried to say were times when the students were in danger are not true," Kelly said. Kelly first laid out her account publicly, in a comment on a Westminster Wire Facebook post linking to coverage of the board's decision. She elaborated in a phone interview with Westminster Wire.

In its June 11 statement defending the vote to end Outdoor School overnights, the board offered a hypothetical it said it would never approve today: "6th graders sleeping overnight in cabins supervised primarily by high school students, on unfenced public property, with a single adult overnight."

Kelly disputes the math. There were always at least three adults on site overnight, she said: a nurse, an Outdoor School teacher, and an adjunct staff member from the county, not the "single adult" the board described in its statement to the community. Officials elsewhere framed the concern as too few certified educators on site overnight, rather than too few adults.

The board's statement also cited cell reception as "non-existent or poor at best" and emergency response as "not immediate." Kelly acknowledged cell service on the property can be spotty; "that's why we have the radios," she said. Staff carry radios, and the principal's radio, which staff take on night hikes, has a red button that places an immediate call to 911, according to Kelly.

In its statement defending the decision, the board said, "One concerning incident involved an individual who appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance who entered the property during the night. He accessed a vehicle and tried to gain access to buildings. Thankfully, he was unable to enter the facilities and a staff member intervened before the situation escalated further. It was later determined the individual had an existing warrant."

The board's written statement did not say whether students were on site when the man entered; it described the episode only as happening "during the night."

Kelly says there were actually two separate incidents, years apart, in which a man who appeared to be under the influence turned up on the property — and that the board's account blends them together.

The vehicle break-in the board described came several years ago, and it was that man, Kelly said, who was later found to have the outstanding warrant. It did not happen while students were at Hashawha. "It happened during a school break when there were no students at Outdoor School," she said. "The man damaged the vehicle, approached the empty main building, and then left. The cameras show he never even approached any of the empty cabins."

The two accounts also differ on how that incident ended: the board said a staff member intervened "before the situation escalated further," while Kelly says the man left on his own after approaching an empty building.

The second incident came more recently — about two years ago, by her account — and this time, students were on the premises. "We did have one incident about 2 years ago when a drunk guy came to the front door of the main building in the late evening. The nurse spoke to him through the closed and locked front door, and he willingly left. The parking lot and front of the main building have cameras, so she was able to watch him leave the premises. The driveway gates are locked every night around 11:30 pm. Students were never in danger and were never made aware of the incident."

That man never approached the cabins either, Kelly said, though students were in them at the time.

Kelly's two-incident account may explain an inconsistency between the board's own descriptions. At the June 10 meeting, board attorney Edmund O'Meally said intruders had shown up "under the influence of something" at times "when we have children residing overnight," and that the one adult able to confront that individual "was the nurse, putting herself at risk." The written statement issued the next day described a man who accessed a vehicle and tried to enter buildings before "a staff member intervened," with no mention of the nurse. In Kelly's telling, the encounter involving the nurse was the drunk man turned away at a locked door while students were in the cabins; the vehicle break-in came when the site was empty.

Kelly went into detail about how the cabins are secured each night. She said every cabin is alarmed, and adult staff conduct a bed check to ensure everyone is where they should be.

"When the teachers leave the cabins at bedtime, they double-check that all doors are locked, and then they alarm the cabin. If anyone even gently pushes on an exterior door, it activates the alarm that goes off in the nurses' office and the cabin where the teachers sleep, which is right next to the student cabins," Kelly said. She added in a phone interview that the door alarms are so sensitive that a student getting up to use the bathroom has sometimes bumped one, setting it off.

At the June 10 meeting, O'Meally said: "Any one of us at any time could go up to Hashawha and walk right up to those cabins, and it happens." Kelly pushed back on the suggestion that anyone ever attempted to enter student cabins overnight or could do so undetected. "No one ever tried to enter the student cabins in the middle of the night," she said. "This never happened."

Kelly described a consistent overnight routine: teachers head to their cabin between 10 and 10:30 p.m., and the night nurse arrives at 10:45 p.m.

Kelly's accounts add detail that the board's statement did not include. The board said the Hashawha site lacks the "controlled access, security measures, alarm systems, trained staff" of a school building. By Kelly's account, the site had alarmed cabins, some camera coverage, and a locked gate — overnight security measures the board's statement did not mention. In Kelly's view, students face more risk during outdoor PE classes at some school campuses than they ever did at Hashawha.

On hikes, day or night, Kelly said students were never in danger on Hashawha property. On the rare occasions when teachers saw a hiker on the property after dusk, authorities were called, and students were kept away, she said.

While most residents first learned a vote was possible the day before the June 10 meeting, Kelly describes earlier internal signals that the program was in jeopardy.

In February, Outdoor School staff were told the program's funding "was in question again," she said. By early May, that threat had passed: staff were told funding was secure; the board had found the money to keep the program, Kelly said.

Then, about a week before the June 10 board meeting, staff were told there was a "good possibility" the board would vote to close the overnight portion after all, this time on safety grounds.

"People were panicking," Kelly said. The board's vote, ending the overnights and pausing the program for the coming year, came two days before the end of the school year, leaving staff almost no time to sort out what came next. By then, the normal transfer window had passed, and positions staff might have preferred were already closed, she said.

The board and O'Meally said the only way to keep the overnight program was to have certified teachers sleep in the bunkrooms with students, and noted that few teachers were willing. O'Meally called it "a big ask" with "collective bargaining ramifications," saying it was "doubtful whether we could do it."

The scale of that ask was laid out at the same meeting by Carroll County Education Association president Celeste Jordan: teachers would arrive about an hour after their contractual day ended, supervise activities like night hikes, remain responsible for students overnight, sleep in the same cabins, and report to their regular classrooms the next morning. "An educator could spend 22 of 24 hours responsible for students," Jordan said.

Kelly said the teachers' union discouraged members from volunteering because, she wrote, "all it takes is one false accusation from a 6th grader or high school counselor to ruin a teacher's reputation and career."

But Kelly says the board left out the full requirement: eight staff members sleeping overnight (one in every bunkroom), and one of the eight had to be an administrator. No requirement for an administrator was mentioned publicly at the June 10 meeting or in the board's statement. "Zero administrators volunteered for this duty," she said. "So even if they had enough teachers willing to do this, it still would not have worked without an administrator there. They set this impossible safety standard knowing it wouldn't work."

"Outdoor School is a very safe place for students with staff who are well trained to handle all types of situations," Kelly wrote.

At the June 10 meeting, O'Meally acknowledged that school sports carry risk but called injuries "part of playing voluntary extracurricular activities," covered by parental permission forms, "a big difference," he said, "from a sixth grader overnight under the supervision of an 11th or 12th grader."

Kelly sees less of a difference: "Parents sign waivers/permission forms for Outdoor School also," she wrote, "AND they have the option to have their child [just be] a day student and not spend the night, [or] opt out entirely." Parents who opt out completely can have their child finish the Outdoor School curriculum online, she noted.

The vote to end Outdoor School overnights came just two days after the item appeared on the board's agenda, with no clear indication of what was at stake, leaving little time for public reaction. Kelly said she isn't surprised at how the board handled the decision. "I'm not surprised they tried to slip this in," she said.

Kelly also believes she isn't alone: she feels other Outdoor School staff take issue with the board's account of staffing and safety at Hashawha, but won't speak publicly while they are still Carroll County Public Schools (CCPS) employees.

The board has said it cannot discuss most incidents publicly because they involve minors, and that details about the site's vulnerabilities remain in closed session. "We would much rather endure criticism for prioritizing student safety than explaining to a parent why their child was injured, assaulted, or worse because we failed to act after warning signs were presented to us," its June statement read.

CCPS spokesperson Carey Gaddis previously told Westminster Wire, "Any discussions that took place in closed session regarding Outdoor School were for legal advice from the Board's attorney. These discussions are not public information." Gaddis did not address the timeline or why the vote proceeded without more public notice.

Gaddis and Board President Steve Whisler did not respond to Westminster Wire's requests for comment on Kelly's statements.

Westminster Wire has covered the Outdoor School decision in an initial report on the June 10 vote, a follow-up on the board's post-vote statement, a roundup of board candidates' reactions, and a look at the questions that remain unanswered.

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Top photo: Misti Kelly as an Outdoor School teacher in the spring of 2026 from the Carroll County Outdoor School X account.