The rapid spread of an e-mail across Montgomery County this week prompted outrage among parents who opened it to learn that school Superintendent Jerry Weast refers to his district as “the cream of the crap.”

The unsavory wording was discovered by members of the Parents Coalition, a political action committee focused on the school system. It was used in a June presentation at Harvard University by Deputy Superintendent Frieda Lacey and several other administrators.

“Our superintendent likes to say we are the cream of the crap,” Lacey told the crowd gathered for a national conference on closing schools’ achievement gaps. “They’re his words, not mine,” she added.

Educators familiar with Weast’s strategies rushed to his defense.

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“His point is that nobody’s good enough yet,” said Ronald Ferguson, professor and director of Harvard’s Achievement Gap Initiative.

Montgomery County is “doing very well compared with the past, but he doesn’t want people in his district to become complacent or superior.”

Parents were less sympathetic.

“As someone in a position of power in a school system, I don’t think you should ever put down any children,” said Janis Sartucci, one of the Parent Coalition’s most outspoken members. “Do it at home with your wife, fine. But never in your position.”

Weast spokesman Brian Edwards said the superintendent uses “crap” to mean school systems, not individual students.

lfabel@dcexaminer.com