Tim Sullivan's statement to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education

Dear Commissioner Chester and Members of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education:

 

We are writing to you regarding the recent decision by the superintendent of the New Bedford Public Schools to require all New Bedford High School teachers to reapply for their positions under a "turnaround" plan calling for the turnover of at least 50 percent of the staff. The MTA strongly opposes school reformmodels that rely on the forced turnover of large numbers of staff. These strategies are disruptive to the lives of educators as well as to the students and communities they serve. The negative impact on the morale of educators from such actions greatly impairs a district’s ability to attract and retain highly qualified educators in the future and leads to an atmosphere of fear, anger, sadness and distrust for years to come.

 

The MTA believes that a far better way to serve NBHS students, and any students in the Commonwealth where a school is designated Level 4 or 5, is for organizations representing educators, administrators, parents, students, business and community leaders to sit down together and work on a school improvement plan that:

 •​is based on a shared vision of success and interventions and strategies supported by solid educational research;

 

•​provides consistent district and school-based leadership;

 

•​builds on the strengths of the school and community; and

 

•​provides support, resources and professional development where deficiencies exist.

 

For this reason, we call upon you, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, to work with the MTA to strike the provision in the current law that permits a superintendent to require all staff in an underperforming school to reapply for their jobs. In addition, we ask you to work with the MTA, MASS and MASC to improve the process and require district leadership tomeet with the union leadership and educators in such schools to construct a meaningful plan with measurable improvement goals. This plan should identify specific resources and support to meet these goals. After seeing the plan, staff members should be given the opportunity to opt out of working in the school rather than being required to reapply.

 

In the case of New Bedford High School, educators have long worked very hard to provide their students with a quality education despite working under five superintendents in six years. They welcome new strategies to improve the academic achievement, graduation rates and social and emotional health of their students. Educators and administrators of NBHS who are committed to the implementation of a collaboratively developed strategic turnaround plan should be permitted to remain working at the newly designed high school without having to reapply.

 

The MTA believes that this approach has the greatest likelihood of improving student success through a process that can be supported by all parties. We hope that, going forward, we can avoid the hurt and turmoil that have been caused in New Bedford by working together to develop solutions that help ourstudents but do not punish the hardworking educators of the Commonwealth. The MTA stands ready to assist the NewBedford Educators Association and New Bedford PublicSchools, as well as other schools and districts in this process in the future.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

Paul Toner,​​​​Tim Sullivan,

President​​​​Vice President