Concerns raised this spring about licensing and the racial diversity of administrators in the Amherst Regional Public Schools must be taken seriously and require continued, careful attention from officials and community members.
Both issues surfaced as the result of the controversial rejection by Superintendent Michael Morris of a search committee’s recommended two finalists for principal of Amherst Regional Middle School, and his subsequent decision, since dropped, to keep on the interim principal, Patricia Bode, for a third year even though she does not have an administrator’s license. The two rejected educators were an African-American and Latina who each have a principal’s certification. Bode’s departure after this school year prompted a new search.
After parent Christine Harmon, a member of the middle school search committee, publicly raised questions and filed formal complaints, the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education reported that two longtime principals in Amherst worked this year with expired licenses, and six other administrators were employed under license waivers granted by the state.
We credit Morris and Doreen Cunningham, the assistant superintendent for diversity, equity and human resources, for acknowledging that mistakes have been made and beginning the process of addressing those problems. Morris must be held accountable for ensuring that all current administrators are properly licensed before the 2018-19 school year begins, and following through on their pledge to consider only properly licensed candidates to fill vacancies, including the interim middle school principal. Three candidates for that job visited Amherst this week.
Morris, who admitted that “We have not always maintained a full roster of administrators who had full administrative licensure,” said Cunningham identified licensure as a problem when she was hired last summer and they had been addressing it even before the state issued its recent report. Both Morris and Cunningham blamed clerical errors as partly responsible for the high number of waivers requested for unlicensed administrators.
All six administrators working under waivers granted by the state will not return to those positions for the next school year.
Particularly puzzling is why Mark Jackson, the high school principal who initially obtained his license in 2012, and Wildwood Elementary Principal Nicholas Yaffe, who has held his license since 2007, were working during the current school year with expired licenses. Yaffe had not held a valid license since at least the 2013-14 school year, according to the DESE report, which reflected licensure status as of May 17. Both principals renewed their licenses two weeks later, on May 31.
Nevertheless, there is no excuse for educators to be working without valid professional licenses. When they expire, the state automatically sends an email reminder to renew. The superintendent’s staff should oversee the paperwork to ensure that all administrative licenses are up to date.
Increasing the racial diversity of school administrators is a more complex challenge for the entire community to address, particularly because some believe that concerns voiced by people of color have not been taken seriously.
Gaylord F. Saulsberry, who worked for a total of 20 years as a principal and teacher at Amherst-Pelham Regional High School, wrote in a letter published this month by the Amherst Bulletin: “Christine Harmon’s public comments to the regional school committee were accurate, relevant and historically true. The hiring process in the system has been steeped in the ‘old boy,’ and more recently, ‘old girl,’ system of privilege.”
Earlier, Trevor Baptiste, a former chairman of the regional school committee, raised similar concerns in saying, “Our hiring processes have been askew for a long, long time.” He added that attention needs to be focused on “whether or not a process is in place” to increase diversity among school administrators, rather than focusing on any individual.
We agree that is the proper approach, and commend school officials for one change already announced — the formation of standing committees at each school, including community members, who will receive training on issues such as implicit bias. Search committee members will be drawn from that pool, which we trust will reflect the racial diversity of the community.
We also urge the School Committee to continue exploring all options to recruit qualified, racially diverse candidates for every position.
The goal of sustaining diversity among school leaders should be a priority for the entire community.
