Above: A parent’s comment at the School Committee’s meeting last week raises questions about the accuracy of the findings reported by the committee’s investigators (image from presentation)
Last week, the Southborough School Committee held a special meeting for a presentation by the consultant hired to “audit” the school’s investigation of racially charged incidents in a Neary classroom last year.
The presentation was mainly positive, lauding the NSBORO Superintendent and Civil Rights Coordinator for quickly launching and appropriately conducting an investigation based on learning that a teacher used a racial slur in a 5th grade classroom in April, and that she had held a mock slave auction of students earlier in the year.
That finding was undercut by a public comment at the end of the meeting. According to the parent of a student in the classroom, the facts presented didn’t accurately reflect what happened last spring.
The comment made by Andrea Hamilton raises the the possibility that the audit relied too heavily on information provided by the administrators whose investigation they were investigating. She questioned if auditors had contacted any of the students’ parents for their knowledge of what transpired.
Last spring, parents had asked for a new investigation by an independent party. Instead, the School Committee hired investigators to determine if the investigation was properly conducted. According to Chair Chelsea Malinowski, the scope was restricted to issues that fall within the committee’s limited purview.
Partners from Comprehensive Investigations and Consulting (CIC) explained they were specifically tasked with assessing if the schools:
- have documented investigation policies and/or procedures
- followed those policies and/or procedures
- conducted a timely investigation and response
- effectively communicated to affected families and the school community at large
They were also to document a timeline of the investigation and response. That was provided in the report to the School Committee but not outlined in the presentation due to privacy concerns.*
CIC found that the schools had appropriate policies that were consistent with most schools. The three specifically relevant were:
- Civil Rights Nondiscrimination Policy A-180
- Teaching of Controversial Issues – I-120
- Bullying Prevention and Intervention Policy – A-150
The Bullying policy related to a third event, in which the teacher allegedly “singled out” a student for having complained about the use of the slur.
Consultants Dan Bennet and John Benzan appeared to find the only lapses in the administration’s following of procedures was mishandling of the “auction” in January.
They repeatedly referred to the “failure” of Principal Kathleen Valenti to accurately follow the district’s Civil Rights policy when she learned about the auction in January.
According to CIC, Valenti did take some prompt actions, but she didn’t contact the district’s Civil Rights Coordinator and open a formal investigation as required under A-180. They indicated that she incorrectly believed it was a matter she could deal with herself.
Their main recommendations focused on making policies and responsibilities clearer and pairing that with training. They believed that with those fixes, the district could avoid the repeat of a misstep by a staff member who doesn’t recognize the steps that need to be followed after a complaint is lodged.
Based on their experience with other investigations, there are specific common terms that are helpful to include and define (e.g., complaint, hostile environment, protected class, target/victim).
But CIC implied that the correct actions were taken by Valenti after learning about the second incident. They also assured that the Civil Rights Coordinator and Superintendent responded to both the racial slur and auction incidents by promptly launching an investigation within days of learning about the incidents, and taking the correct steps outlined in the policy. That included appropriately documenting the investigation and all communications.
Although the investigation took a few days longer than the policy outlines, that was viewed as appropriate due to the number of people that needed to be interviewed during the process. The follow through was also rapid in making and communicating a discipline decision (dismissing the teacher) based on the investigation findings.
CIC’s Benzan praised the administration and School Committee for the “extraordinary” actions taken to recognize and respond to the Civil Rights issue rather than taking a defensive posture as many schools do. Those actions included hiring them, proactively creating a formal Action Plan before waiting for audit results, and taking steps in the plan, like the hiring of a Director of Equity, Belonging, and Community Engagement.
But CIC’s perception of events didn’t align with the recollections Hamiltion shared in public comments at the end of the meeting.
She noted that the recap of the communications with parents left out initial phone calls that were made by Valenti and the teacher on May 1st, before the investigation was started. She said that parents were given false and incomplete information about the incidents in those calls.
She also claimed that only the third incident prompted the investigation:
I think it’s important to note that at the point when the slur was known by the Superintendent, no investigation was triggered.
She explained that she knew that based on her participation in a series of meetings with Superintendent Gregory Martineau and the Civil Rights Coordinator, Ms. Heather Richards. She said when parents kept asking why it took so long to investigate, they were told:
neither of the first two incidents rose to the severity of requiring an investigation. And that it was only at the point when there was retaliation against a student that an investigation was required.
Hamilton also pointed out that she had emailed the school committee to ask whether parents would be contacted as part of the investigation. She never heard back:
I know that I wasn’t interviewed, and I don’t know any parents that were. So, I don’t know where all of this information is coming from. Again, it feels like there were a couple of big misses. So, again, I’m struggling a little with faith and confidence of this body’s ability to have oversight for itself.
The audience for the meeting was very small. But Hamilton wasn’t the only community member there who expressed upset during public comments. Two other women spoke up.
Last spring, a petition had called for the firing of Valenti and suspending Martineau. CIC made clear they were not hired to reinvestigate or take a position on disciplinary actions the schools did or should take.
The School Committee has said that performance and discipline school staff isn’t in their purview. Because of that, their comment policies prohibits public commenters complaining about specific school employees.
That made commenting difficult for residents upset over Martineau’s handling of Valenti’s discipline. The committee is responsible for Martineau’s performance. (And just gave him an exemplary performance evaluation and their full support at their June meeting.)
Resident Nicki Pinckney commented to ask what the appropriate discipline should be for Valenti for not having complied with the policy after the auction. She followed:
regardless of written policies, shouldn’t the principal have known, as a tenured leader, that a racially oriented complaint, whether formal or informal, should have been escalated immediately? We should not need to annotate every branch of the tree of possibilities in order to ensure that our principal is going to make the right choices to protect our students in every single situation.
Reminded about the comment policy, Pinckney followed:
then I guess my next question is how the Superintendent is performing their responsibilities. How do we evaluate how that decision was appropriate?
Resident Jill Dixon followed. She thanked the School Committee for their amazing work and CIC, then said:
While I’m going to reference the principal, I think this definitely falls under the Superintendent’s responsibilities and therefore, the School Committee’s.
Dixon made clear her disgust that Valenti is still in her job, and in the audience that night.
Since the committee’s policy is not to engage in dialogue with public commenters, no responses were given.
You can read CIC’s “Inquiry & Assessment Presentation” from the meeting here. You can also view the school committee’s Action Plan and progress here. And you can view the October 17th meeting on Southborough Access Media’s website here. (That’s also where you can find the schedule for when it will be played on the government access channel.)
During the meeting, Malinowski explained to the audience that policy changes will need to be conducted by the Northborough, Southborough, and Regional subcommittees for policy. That is to ensure that shared district staff have the same steps to follow for each town/school.**
Malinowski also referred to concerns that had been raised about whether the school had placed too many special needs students in one classroom. She said that the school committee had an audit of special needs conducted, which was reported at their September meeting. By that, she appears to have been referring to the state’s audit conducted every three years. You can find that here. You can view the discussion here.
*CIC’s Dan Bennett and John Benzan told the audience that the timeline would reveal information that shouldn’t be made public about personnel and/or students.
**It’s worth noting that in compliance with state laws, policy revisions aren’t made quickly. The subcommittee’s recommendations are brought to the combined school committees for a 1st Reading. At that time, committee members can ask questions and provide feedback (which may cause the subcommittee to make further changes). That is followed by a comment period in which the public can also provide feedback. A vote isn’t taken until after it returns to the combined committees for a 2nd reading.
Updated (10/23/24 8:35 am): I fixed formatting issues, including block quotes that had been missing for some of the public statements.
