Why Should Delaware Care?
Earlier this year, lawmakers passed a bill that required school board members to live within their district’s footprint for at least 75% of a given year. Gov. Matt Meyer then signed it into law. Now, a Christina School Board member who has been living in Pakistan could be removed from the board because of the new rules.
For the past year, the Christina School Board has dealt with an unusual controversy for local government, whereby one of its elected members has lived at least some of his time far outside of the school district boundaries — in Pakistan.
On Wednesday, the school board may vote to oust the member, Naveed Baqir.
Last week, an attorney for the Christina School District told board members and Superintendent Deirdra Joyner in an email that he had recently asked Baqir to prove he had “been physically present” in the Christina School District during the three months since July 1.
The attorney, Michael Stafford, made the request in response to a bill lawmakers passed in June, requiring school board members to live within their district’s footprint for at least 75% of a given year.
Depending on Baqir’s response, Stafford said board members may consider a motion to declare a vacancy for his seat during its next meeting Wednesday. If they do not consider the motion, a resident of the district may also “file a lawsuit in Superior Court to have a vacancy declared,” Stafford said in his email.
When reached for comment, school board president Monica Moriak said she will ensure that board members address Baqir’s residency during Wednesday’s meeting. She also noted that she hadn’t personally heard from Baqir “in months,” saying her only interactions with him have been virtual during board meetings.
If the board does not take action and a resident instead sues, Moriak said, then that would suggest “that we are now breaking the law, which I don’t want to do.”
“And also that becomes a financial issue anytime a lawsuit is brought against the district,” Moriak said.
The Christina School Board is currently a party to several lawsuits, including one in which its former superintendent Dan Shelton is suing for wrongful termination.
📍 The Christina School Board public meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Wednesday at Glasgow High School, located at 1901 South College Avenue, near Newark. For additional details, including information about virtual attendance, click here.
How did the district get here?
The controversy around Baqir’s residency first erupted last year when reports emerged that he had been living in Pakistan and attending school board meetings remotely.
During one contentious meeting in the summer of 2024, board member Doug Manley argued that Baqir’s votes on the board should not be counted because of doubts about residency. At that meeting, Baqir had voted in favor of placing Shelton – then the superintendent – on an indefinite administrative leave.
At the time, Baqir was a part of a four-member bloc on the board that typically voted together – thus serving as a loose governing coalition.
Following Manley’s comments, then-board president Donald Patton declared Manley out of order, saying, “So what I’m not going to do tonight is entertain this nonsense,” as reported then by Delaware Public Media.
One month after that acrimonious meeting, WHYY reported that a private religious school in Newark that Baqir co-founded was the subject of a grand jury investigation into nearly $11 million in federal dollars it received for COVID-era school meal program.
Later in the year, Baqir addressed the criticism around his residency, insisting that his legal residency remained within the Christina School District’s geographic footprint.
“Just because somebody has to go out for study to take care of families, that does not make them a non-resident,” he said during a board meeting last fall.
The following year, in March, the controversy drew another critic in Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton (D-Bear) who introduced two pieces of legislation – House Bill 82 and House Bill 83 – that each targeted Baqir’s residency situation.
Then, in April, Manley filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery, asking a judge to declare that Baqir is not a resident of the district, and therefore ineligible to serve on the board.
By June, Patton announced that Baqir would resign the following month, causing some lawmakers to question whether the legislation targeting him was moot. But Wilson-Anton, an influential progressive voice in the legislature, insisted her bills were necessary, arguing that legislators must “make sure that people who are elected to represent their communities live in those communities.”
Ultimately, HB 82 passed, and Gov. Matt Meyer signed it into law on June 30.
Meyer also signed the parallel bill, HB 83, in September, which imposes stricter rules around when a school board member can attend a meeting remotely.
On July 21, Spotlight Delaware reported that Baqir had not submitted his resignation.
Christina board members respond
In addition to Moriak, three other school board members shared their reactions with Spotlight Delaware to their attorney’s recent email about the possibility of declaring Baqir’s seat vacant on Wednesday.
In an emailed statement, Manley asserted that Baqir had not “set foot” in the United States in almost two years. He also said it is his “firm stance” that state law already forbade Baqir from serving on the board, even before Wilson-Anton’s bills. Still, he said the new legislation makes the law even clearer.
“I am hopeful that this board will finally do the legal thing (and also the right thing),” Manley said in the statement.
In a separate email, board member Y.F. Lou did not reveal whether he might vote in favor of a vacancy on the school board, stating he could not comment on a potential motion before it is formally presented.
“Any item that comes before the board is considered with the utmost seriousness,” he said.
Lou also stated that his position is “not a personal attack on Dr. Baqir,” noting what he said were Baqir’s “contributions to the school district and his advocacy for the Muslim community.”
Finally, Christina School Board member Shannon Troncoso said in an email that she will abstain from voting on a vacancy, and instead wait for Manley’s lawsuit to be adjudicated.
She also said she is awaiting an answer from Stafford — the school district’s attorney — to her question of how the board has the “lawful right to request personal information from Dr. Baqir” — a reference to his residency.
“For all I know, Dr. Baqir may very well have returned home multiple times — and as an adult and elected official he has no obligation to check in or report his whereabouts to me or any other member of the board,” Troncoso said.
