Public Comment: School District Needs New Leadership

The following public comment was offered in person and in writing for the joint meeting of the Amherst Regional and Union 26 School Committees on December 12, 2023.

I understand why the administration didn’t want the Title IX reports to be made public, because transparency leads to accountability, like we’re seeing with Kathy Mazur. 

For months while people were advocating to protect LGBTQ+ children we were told to wait for the reports and that nothing would happen until the reports were released.  Then, Superintendent Michael Morris was given his severance package, before the reports were released. I wonder if those of you on the committee who supported his buyout would still do so given what has now been revealed? Then the reports came out but you told us we couldn’t see them. The same reports we were told to wait for were now unavailable to us. This was an upsetting but not surprising move from an administration that consistently fights calls for transparency. 

On November 1, a month and a half ago, this administration was asked a series of specific questions in an email that was also published in the Indy, about how it is currently handing bullying complaints. There has been no reply. We have watched Interim Superintendent Doug Slaughter fail to respond to direct questions from School Committee members about how many complaints there have been or how they have been processed. 

Tonight at this meeting, we are being reassured that the administration is “really trying” and that educators are now being told that they must bring complaints of bullying and harassment to the attention of the administration. That has always been the case, it is required by law and was required by law last year as well. The problem is, it didn’t happen or if administrators were informed, they didn’t act. At this same meeting we are being told that kids experiencing bullying or harassment should find a trusted adult and that if their trusted adult needs support they should bring their concerns to the counseling staff or central office. When a school committee member named that there has been a culture of fear and retaliation within the Amherst Regional Public Schools (ARPS), making it feel unsafe for educators to bring information to the central office and asked what systems are in place to prevent the same from happening again, there was no clear answer. The problem is this; there are no trusted adults in an administration that allowed harm to come to LGBTQ+ kids. 

And now, after failing to block the public from receiving the reports, Slaughter is undermining them. In a public letter, he suggested that investigator Ed Mitnick got it wrong in assigning responsibility to some members of the administration. This is the report we were told we should all wait for in order to form our opinions, and now that we are forming opinions the administration doesn’t like that and they suggest the reports were wrong? 

I’ve read the Title IX reports. They were gut-wrenching. And what I can’t stop thinking about is that there are still children in those buildings every day, and I don’t trust this administration to keep them safe. 

The reports reveal that these problems are systemic. Mike Morris and Doreen Cunningham were central to the institutional failures that caused harm to LGBTQ+ kids, but the people around them were complicit. And much of the administration hasn’t changed. They continue to hold power and they continue to avoid transparency and in Slaughter’s recent public letter, he demonstrated a continued unwillingness to hold responsible people accountable. 

In order to restore public trust we need new leadership. Otherwise we are rebuilding the same system that we already know has failed kids.

When Massachusetts Association of School Committees consultants came to a Regional School Committee (RSC) meeting to answer questions about the upcoming hiring process, one of them suggested that sometimes the best candidate is the in house candidate. Kathy Mazur proposed the company that we now have working to choose the next Superintendent. Doug Slaughter is actively defending Kathy Mazur despite the findings of the Title IX investigator, who was chosen by the district. It is clear that a path is being cleared which would maintain the status quo in terms of ARPS administrative leadership.

The students of ARPS deserve a fresh start and new leadership and calls for resignations reflect that. I urge Acting Superintendent Slaughter to accept Kathy Mazur’s resignation. I urge the RSC to pay close attention to who is defending the actions of those who allowed kids to be harmed, and who continues to protect the wrong people. 

This administration has lost our trust. Please refuse to vote to approve any Superintendent who was part of the administration when the failures and harm described in the Title IX reports occurred. 

Ali Wicks Lim

Ali Wicks-Lim is a former Amherst Regional Public Schools parent.