Delaware school board member challenges residency of fellow board member living in Pakistan

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A member of the Christina school board in northern Delaware has gone to court to challenge another board member’s fitness to serve on the board.

School board member Naveed Baqir has not been seen in the school district or his nominating district in close to 14 months. He has been living in Pakistan since January 2024 and attending meetings remotely. Doug Manley has argued that means he is no longer a Delaware resident and should no longer be allowed to be on the board.

Despite Baqir acknowledging he doesn’t currently live in the country, Christina School President Donald Patton has backed Baqir’s position that because he has family and property in the district, he is still a resident.

“Unless a court finds that Dr. Baqir no longer holds residency in Delaware and the [Christina School District], I will continue to support him and his legal right to fully participate in all board decisions,” Patton said in an emailed statement.

Manley is asking the Delaware Court of Chancery for an immediate ruling declaring Baqir is no longer a resident of Delaware and therefore ineligible to serve as a school board member. Manley wants the court to bar Baqir from further participating in board activities and require the school district to fill what would be the vacant seat.

Under Delaware law, once a school board seat becomes vacant, as Manley argues it already is, the district is supposed to notify the Department of Elections so someone can be appointed or a special election can be held. But the Christina School District has not declared the seat vacant.

Manley has questioned Baqir’s legitimacy to vote on agenda items due to his residency status as far back as July 2024. But Patton dismissed his point of order as “nonsense.”

“It’s not a part of the agenda and it is not the law in this case,” Patton said in a board meeting last year.

Manley said he believes Patton wants to keep Baqir on the board because he is an ally for the board president’s agenda. Patton, Baqir, YF Lou and Alethea Smith-Tucker have often voted as a bloc on issues such as placing former Superintendent Dan Shelton on paid leave and removing agenda items related to Baqir’s residency status. Manley and board members Monica Moriak and Amy Trauth were frequently outnumbered. Smith-Tucker is not running for reelection in May.

“The district will be better off with just him not participating, because that means Patton’s majority can’t just ram through all the terrible things they want to do,” Manley said.

Shelton has filed a multi-million dollar federal lawsuit against the school board and the four members individually who voted to place him on leave. The defendants have submitted motions asking for the case to be dismissed.

Baqir said during an August 2024 meeting he is living outside of the U.S. to care for elderly relatives, attend school and help his daughter with her study abroad program. He did not respond to a request for comment.

The situation is something the state’s not dealt with before in its history. The Christina school board’s acrimonious, grievance-filled, hourslong meetings over the past year helped bring it to the public’s attention and drew the focus of state lawmakers. So, it’s no coincidence that several of legislators who represent the Wilmington and Newark areas, which include the Christina School District, are sponsoring a package of bills designed to overhaul how school boards operate.

State Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton, D-Newark, has introduced legislation that would require school board members to physically reside in the school district they represent for at least 75% of the days in any yearlong period of their term. The bill allows a resident of the school district to ask the Delaware Superior Court to declare a vacancy if the school district fails to inform the state’s Department of Elections that a member no longer lives in the district.

“I think it’s unfortunate that we are having to introduce bills like this,” she said earlier this month. “The great majority of school boards and school board members are responsible, they’re accountable to the public, they’re acting with their community’s best interest at heart. Unfortunately, as I think all of us have seen over the past year plus, there are a few bad actors not doing that.”

When asked about Manley’s lawsuit, Wilson-Anton said in a text message that she thought he was right to sue.

“It shouldn’t have had to come to this,” she wrote. “Donald Patton is doing what he can to protect votes on the board. We should have had a special election.”

Manley said he thinks a vote on Wilson-Anton’s residency bill isn’t coming fast enough.

“I thought this would have been an open and shut case in January, easy legislation,” he said. “‘Hey, if you don’t live in this state, you probably shouldn’t be on the school board.’ But here we are [at the] end of April and it’s out of committee, but that’s about it. It still has to get through the House, get through the Senate and get signed.”

The General Assembly is in session through the end of June, before lawmakers take a six-month break and reconvene in January 2026.

Another measure from Wilson-Anton would allow remote attendance at school board meetings under certain circumstances, such as illness, caring for a sick family member, pregnancy, military service and public health emergencies. But it would allow the district to reject remote attendance permissions and to limit the number of times remote attendance may be used. It’s waiting for a Senate committee hearing.

Patton and Manley have made it clear over the past year that they have very different visions for the future of the school district. Manley said Baqir’s votes in support of Patton during this time have “dragged the district down.”

“Baqir right now is causing harm to the district,” he said. “And I can’t as an elected official sit by and watch this happen, so I’m going to exhaust every possible route that I have to try to get this harm to stop.”

Patton said in a statement the people who are concerned about Baqir’s residency are Manley, two previous board members, a few politicians and individuals he said are uninformed about decisions by the board’s majority.

“People are upset we don’t vote the way they think we should,” he said.

The General Assembly ordered the Delaware Department of Justice to monitor the board because of frequent Freedom of Information Act violations. A report on their findings is due in July.

Aside from his residency status, Baqir has also faced questions about allegedly using shell companies to bill the school district and a grand jury probe into the private school he co-founded.

This story was supported by a statehouse coverage grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.