The head of human resources for the Prince George’s school system will resign effective Aug. 15, according to school officials.

Synthia J. Shilling, who faces a trial this month on a charge of leaving the scene of a car accident, told school officials earlier this week that she planned to resign. At the time, she did not say when she would leave.

Briant Coleman, a schools spokesman, said Shilling’s resignation comes five days before schools open on Aug. 20. Shilling was hired in Prince George’s in 2006 and named to her current post in 2010.

This month’s court appearance will not be Shilling’s first since being employed by the school system.

Four years ago, she was given probation before judgment and fined more than $400 for second-degree assault on a Maryland state trooper. She also received probation before judgment for driving while impaired at the time of the incident.

The probation before judgment sentence came before Shilling was promoted by School Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. to her current position.

Coleman said Hite would not respond to a request to discuss his decision to promote Shilling or her employment status since her run-ins with the law.

Shilling’s departure comes as the Board of Education is searching for a replacement for Hite, who has taken a job to lead the schools in Philadelphia.

An interim superintendent is expected to be named by Aug. 15.

Outgoing Prince George’s County School Superintendent William R. Hite Jr., who said he will remain in the county until Sept. 30, has been working part-time in Philadelphia a couple days a week since mid-July.

Hite, who accepted a job to become the Philadelphia schools chief last month, began consulting with the city’s school reform commission on the transition process earlier this month, according to a contract signed Wednesday.

Community activists who hope to overturn a plan to build soccer fields on school system-owned land in Montgomery County suffered a setback Tuesday, when the Maryland Board of Education upheld the local school board’s decision.

The 20-acre property on Brickyard Road in Potomac has been leased to an organic farmer for 30 years. But last year, the Montgomery Board of Education approved a plan to lease the property instead to the county to be used as soccer fields. The plan galvanized protests from neighbors, open government advocates, and environmentalists.
Nick Maravell working at his farm on March 11, 2011. Maravell is an organic farmer who has been leasing land from the Montgomery County School Board for 30 years to grow corn, soy beans and other crops. Now the board is planning to build soccer fields in this land. (JUANA ARIAS - FOR THE WASHINGTON POST)

Curt Urhe, a spokesman for the Brickyard Coalition, a citizens group, said it plans to appeal the state Board of Education ruling in Circuit Court and that the group is mounting a more comprehensive lawsuit.

“We aren’t in the ninth inning; This is more like the third inning,” said Uhre, who lives near the farm on Brickyard Road, where neighbors have long fought to calm traffic.

Nick Maravell, the organic farmer who manages the farm, asked a circuit court judge for an injunction to stay on the land when his lease expired this March. In a settlement, the county permitted him to stay until Aug. 15. Maravell on Tuesday said he does not yet know what he plans to do next.

The Prince George’s Board of Education is scheduled to meet in a closed-door session Saturday morning to discuss candidates for interim superintendent.

Each board member is expected to provide several names of possible candidates.

Those names will be discussed, then whittled down to three candidates. Their names will then be passed along to a search firm.

Maryland students led the nation in growth in reading, science and math performance on a national test, according to a report released this week.

The analysis by a Stanford economist and Harvard education policy expert surveyed student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress between 1995 and 2009 to see whether reforms, such as the introduction of school accountability programs or increased spending on education, were making a difference in a yawning international achievement gap.