Still, bullying ranks above active shooters as teachers’ No. 1 safety concern, RAND’s researchers found.

Meanwhile, a growing number of Americans are worried that schools are not safe from gun violence. Some 57% of Americans now say they think the schools in their community are safe from gun violence, a drop from the 65% who said the same in 2019, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist University national poll found.

More than 330 people were injured or killed in approximately 300 school shootings in 2022; there were 250 shooting incidents in 2021, the RAND Corporation reports. “These two most recent years have seen well more than double the number of shooting incidents at schools each year throughout the 2000s,” the authors of the study said. “All told, more than 330,000 students have been exposed to gun violence in a school setting in the past two decades.”

Teachers remain divided on the issue of letting educators carry firearms. While 54% said it would make schools less safe, 20% said arming teachers would improve security. The rest landed in the middle, saying guns would make schools neither more nor less safe. More white teachers than Black teachers said they believe arming teachers would improve safety while male teachers in rural schools were most likely to say they would carry a firearm at school if allowed.

More from DA: Kentucky superintendent suspended as two other leaders call it quits 

Several past surveys by other researchers have found lower levels of support among teachers for arming themselves, RAND’s researchers add. Meanwhile, about half of teachers think more common safety measures—such as locks, ID badges, cameras, and security staff—improve their school’s climate.

Arming teachers: What’s next?

Administrators and policymakers are encouraged to take a look at school districts that have more expansive teacher-carry programs to understand if the policy has made schools safer or if there have been unintended consequences, such as accidental discharges of firearms. How parents, students and staff have responded to the policy in those districts should also be considered.

Here are other steps that RAND recommends K12 administrators take before arming teachers:

1. Assess their outcomes potential outcomes by conducting a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of teacher-carry programs.
2. Develop risk analysis approaches that focus on both frequent, lower-level forms of school violence (such as bullying) and less likely, extreme forms of school violence—such as shootings.
3. Develop a deeper understanding of the sources of teachers’ safety concerns.
4. Identify how fears of victimization and other safety concerns contribute to teacher and principal turnover and to student enrollment, attendance and academic performance.
5. Take the pulse of parents, teachers, administrators, and students about school safety measures. Disaggregate feedback by type of community to zero in on the perceptions of school safety.

The post This is how many teachers would carry a gun to make their school safer appeared first on District Administration.

Before it was burned, the small flag was displayed in a planter outside of a classroom at Saticoy Elementary School. The Los Angeles Police Department says it took a report last week and launched a hate crime vandalism investigation.

It’s not clear who burned it but it seems to be part of a deeper divide among parents over whether LGBTQ and Pride issues should be taught in grade school.

Read more from ABC7.com.

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Anne Staffieri has been chosen as the next superintendent of the San Dieguito Union High School District in California after leading the Escondido Union High School District for the past four years. Staffieri was also superintendent of Ramona USD from 2016-19. A former high school biology and Spanish teacher, Staffieri was named superintendent of the year by the California Continuation Education Association in 2021.

In North Carolina, Dale Cole has been unanimously approved as superintendent of Brunswick County Schools. A 30-year education veteran, Cole is now superintendent of Clay County Schools and has also worked for districts in Hyde and Beaufort counties. He also was voted North Carolina’s principal of the year 2013. In Ohio, Jeff Harrison will take over as superintendent of Brecksville-Broadview Heights City Schools on Aug. 1. Harrison, who has more than 20 years of experience in education, is currently the superintendent of Buckeye Local Schools.

Finally, in the Northwest, Superintendent Kim Spacek is moving from the 200-student Inchelium School District No. 70 in Washington to Mountain View School District 244 in Idaho, the Idaho County Free Press reports.

First-time superintendents take charge

Among the notable first-timers is Suzanne Johnson, who has been selected as the next superintendent of School District U-46, the second-largest in Illinois. Johnson had served five years as the suburban Chicago district’s deputy superintendent of instruction before being named interim superintendent in February.

In North Carolina, Major Warner will replace 10-year veteran David Jeck as superintendent of Fauquier County Public Schools in Virginia. Warner, who is now deputy superintendent, helped increase graduation rates and mentor principals and staff as Fauquier County’s chief academic officer. Warner began his career as a school counselor.

In the same state, Nakia Hardy, a deputy superintendent in Durham Public Schools, has been chosen to lead Lexington City Schools. Hardy has previously served as chief academic officer for Guilford County Schools, the executive director for teaching and learning for Baltimore City Public Schools and the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for Rockingham County Schools.

In California, Julienne Lee was chosen to lead the Buena Park School District near Los Angeles after having served as associate superintendent of educational services at Fullerton School District, where she oversaw dual-language immersion programs in Spanish and Korean and an award-winning intervention program. Lee has also been a dual-language immersion teacher, a Response to Intervention coach, an assistant principal and a principal.

Also in California, Gilroy USD has chosen as its next superintendent Anisha Munshi, an associate superintendent of professional learning and educational progress at the Santa Clara County Office of Education. Munshi began her career as an elementary school teacher and assistant principal at Gilroy USD.

More from DA: This low-profile staff position can save districts millions each year 

And in Texas, Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD has made interim superintendent Alejandro Elias its permanent leader. Elias has been the principal of an early college high school and a middle school in the district.

Other recently hired first-time superintendents include:

• Nathan Black, School District of Nekoosa (Wisconsin)
• Tamara Champa, Hastings Public Schools (Minnesota)
• Lisa Fletcher, Transylvania County Schools (North Carolina)
• Consuela Girty, Cherokee Central Schools (North Carolina)
• Elizabeth Kaufman, Mill Valley School District (California)
• Rebecca Kidwell, Seekonk Public Schools (Massachusetts)
• Matthew Neighbors, Galveston ISD (Texas)
• Robert Pappalardo, Apache Junction Unified School District (Arizona)
• Dana Kriznar (interim), Duval County Public Schools (Florida)

The post Several superintendents switch as first-timers join the ranks of K12 leadership appeared first on District Administration.

The food truck will, of course, be a big part of Lincoln Public Schools’ culinary CTE program. But getting the truck going will require the skills and participation of students studying graphic design, automotive repair, business and law, among other subjects. “This food truck is a mobile classroom that is cross-curricular,” says Filippelli, Rhode Island’s 2023 Superintendent of the Year.

Lincoln Public Schools bought the five-year-old food truck from a restaurant with $125,000 worth of help from the Rhode Island Department of Education. Three graphic design students, including one who is special needs, have designed the wrap to cover the exterior of the truck, now dubbed the “Lion’s Mane” after the district’s mascot. Business and law students will review state regulations to ensure the truck has all the appropriate licenses.

The CTE focus jibes with the “vision of a graduate” framework Filippelli and his team are now finalizing after three years of work. “That’s the curriculum driver for everything we want our little Lions to be when they come to preschool and what we want our seniors to exit as when they graduate,” he says.

That vision, however, goes nowhere without the facilities to support i. Lincoln Public Schools, a suburban district of about 3,200 students, recently completed a $60 million renovation of its high school and is now building a $9 million physical education center. In the fall, voters will be asked to approve a $25 million bond to fund new gymnasiums, makerspaces, STEM spaces and reimagined cafeterias at the district’s elementary schools, where the media centers are also being renovated and updated.

“We’ve got a lot of infrastructure to support the curriculum,” Filippelli explains. “By the time we’re done, we’re probably going to spend close to $100M in renovations. That is really exciting.”

Why you need a second therapy dog

Meeting the social-emotional needs of students and adults presents one of the biggest issues that Filippelli says he and his team are facing as the school year winds down. “Last school year, we were coming out of COVID and we came out pretty strong but this year, getting back into those routines and putting COVID in the rear-view mirror, that really has been a challenge,” he says. “There have been some behaviors that we’ve had to address that just leave you scratching your head.”

The district has used ESSER funds to hire extra social workers and psychologists and ramped up professional development on trauma-informed practices. The district is also now home to a therapy dog, a Labradoodle named Willow. “She has made an incredible difference when it comes time for state testing and finals exams,” Filippelli says. “We’re considering getting a second one because it has made a huge impact to have a therapy dog here.”

Lincoln has not struggled to hire teachers as much as it has in filling administrative vacancies. The district has received about half the applications that it normally gets for an open position.

More from DA: This low-profile staff position can save districts millions each year 

Filippelli is seeing both lower enrollments in college administrative training programs and fewer teachers excited about moving to central office. The pay for a beginning administrator—such as an assistant principal—is not that much higher than for an experienced teacher who also earns a stipend for additional instructional duties. Some educators may not consider the pay increase worth the tilt in work-life balance for an administrator who is obligated to attend school events multiple nights a week, among other duties.

Can schools provide everything?

Filippelli is deeply involved in state and regional school safety efforts, including with SENTRY, a Northeastern University-based think tank that is backed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and is looking into the role artificial intelligence can play in K12 security, among other research. The organization has also analyzed Lincoln’s lockdown drills.

He is also an adjuct instructor in the principal development program at Providence College and often works with state legislators on laws that will impact education, both positively and negatively. He is concerned about a bill that, at a cost of $15 million, would provide universal free meals to all students and the financial strain that could place on the state’s education system.

“Ever since we became mobile hospitals during COVID, parents have this expectation that schools just need to provide everything,” he concludes. “As you provide more, responsibility gets pulled away from parents, and when people have responsibilities pulled away from them, you get used to that really quickly.”

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Authorities did not provide any details about the criminal allegation made against Constant or the investigation, according to The Owensboro Times. Constant became Owensboro’s superintendent in 2020 and has worked for the district since 2011, having also served as assistant superintendent and chief academic officer. He has also worked for the Daviess County School District, the newspaper reported.

In West Virginia, Nicholas County Schools Superintendent Donna Burge-Tetrick resigned along with a school board member in the midst of what the Charleston Gazette-Mail described as seven years of “construction woes” that dogged efforts to recover from disastrous flooding in 2016. Coincidentally, that was the same year Burge-Tetrick was hired as superintendent.

Earlier in May, Nicholas County Schools had opened the second phase of reconstruction with a bid of $148 million, an amount that is $51 million over the funds remaining for the project, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported. The previous rebuilding phase was bogged down by disruptions that included a lawsuit between the district and state board of education in 2018, the newspaper added. Burge-Tetrick will remain on the job until June 30.

And Jason Reynolds, the superintendent of one of Arizona’s largest districts, announced that he will also step down in June, a year before his contract would have expired. Reynolds, who became Peoria Unified School District’s superintendent in 2020, was one of the first leaders to reopen classrooms to in-person learning during the COVID pandemic, according to the Arizona Republic.

The district has endured some controversy this year, notably when the school board voted 3-2 against restricting transgender students from accessing bathrooms consistent with their gender identity, the Arizona Republic reported. Reynold was previously the assistant superintendent of leadership and secondary instruction at Paradise Valley School District, also in Arizona.

More superintendents stepping down

In one of the most high-profile retirements of the last week, Superintendent Mark Henry will retire from Cypress-Fairbanks ISD in Texas in December 2023, after more than 40 years in education and 32 years as a superintendent. Henry also served as superintendent of four other districts: Milford, Collinsville, Sulphur Springs and Galena Park ISD.

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Leaders in a handful of other school districts have announced resignations and retirements in recent days:

• Superintendent Karling Aguilera-Fort is leaving the Oxnard School District (California) for a leadership position at San Francisco USD.
• Superintendent Kelli Bush is resigning from Elizabethtown Independent Schools (Kentucky) on July 1, The News-Enterprise reported.
• Boyd K. English, hired in 2018, is retiring from the Albertville City School System (Alabama).
• Superintendent Tim Johnson will leave the School District of Glenwood City (Wisconsin) on June 30.
• Roger Reed resigned from S&S Consolidated ISD (Texas) on May 27.

The post Kentucky superintendent suspended as two other leaders call it quits appeared first on District Administration.

Firstly, teachers should not wait until the first day of school to begin getting to know their students. The summer slide can be greatly reduced by teachers who develop an understanding of their incoming students’ strengths and weaknesses before summer vacation, Hattie said in a seminar for Curriculum Associates.

The best way to do this is to talk to their previous teachers. “The summer effect is a teacher effect,” Hattie explains. “If you want an accelerated start to the new year, get to know those students, what their performance was like in the past year … so you don’t waste the first two to three weeks of the year getting to know your students—and wasting their time whilst you work out what you could’ve done.”

More from DA: This low-profile staff position can save districts millions each year

This information will inform a key mindset needed to get off to a strong start. “When you walk into the classroom next year, I want you to say my job is to evaluate my impact,” he continued. “Your job is not merely to get through the curriculum,” he pointed out. “It’s every day, you’re constantly nosy: How I am doing? What am I having an effect on? What am I not having an effect on? Who am I having an effect on? Who am I not, and how big is that effect?”

Here are some of the steps Hattie says are crucial to student success on both the first day of school and throughout the first semester:

1. Work together to evaluate impact: Administrators can provide teachers with time to meet with students’ previous teachers to share assessments of each learner. Important information includes how students respond to mistakes and how they demonstrated growth.
2. Work backward: Educators can start now setting goals for the progress they want students to have made by the end of the first 12 weeks of the school year.
3. Have high expectations: These first-semester goals should be driven by high expectations. Teachers who have ambitious—but not overly ambitious—expectations have a “dramatically higher” impact on student achievement, Hattie attests.
4. Share expectations with students: When the skills embedded in the expectations are transparent, students feel like they are part of the equation and part of the acceleration.
5. Use the ‘Goldilocks’ principle: Success criteria should be “not too hard, not too easy and not too boring.” The concept of productive struggle should be a guiding light.
6. Maximize the effect of feedback: The most impactful feedback focuses on “where to next?” Students want to know how and where they can improve. “Teachers give an incredible amount of feedback but it’s variable and one-third of it is negative,” Hattie asserts.
7. Understand students’ mindsets: Before the first day of school, teachers should have a grasp of their incoming students’ sense of confidence and enjoyment and their concepts of success. Key questions educators should ask are: “Do you invite students to think aloud? How many times do teachers think aloud?”
8. Attend to the climate and cult of classrooms: Students want to know classrooms are fair and safe, and that it is OK to make errors. They also want assurance the teachers are going to help them make progress.
9. Development assessment-capable students: Students need guidance in understanding assessment results, where they stand academically and setting goals for themselves. Then, they can select tools to guide their own learning. “I want students to be their own teachers,” Hattie concluded.

The post How the end of this school year can help jumpstart next year appeared first on District Administration.

“I want our two principals to understand they have the freedom to try something new and just because one attempt didn’t work, that doesn’t in any way hamper my support for them trying something else that’s different,” Perry explains. “We’re going to try something new again.”

The 450-student Arlee Joint School District, which is part of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes is 65% Native American and operates on a four-day school week. The schedule has helped the district attract and retain teachers who are willing to travel to the district from Missoula, which is about 20 miles away and home to the University of Montana.

Trying new things also means replacing outdated facilities with modernized schools. Arlee is now building a new space for grades 3-6 to replace a facility that is nearly more than 90 years old. The $14 million project, which is an extension of the K-2 building, is being financed with ESSER funds and bonds approved by local voters.

More from DA: How this superintendent is amping up the power of his small N.J. district

To get those bonds passed, Perry invited community members on some eye-opening tours of the old building. “A lot of community members went to school here,” he notes. “Their memories of what the school looked like 30 or 40 years ago is not what the school looks like now. In their mind, it’s the same school they went to and it was fine.”

The project will feature a larger media center with a maker space and room for Salish language and Indian studies programs. There will also be formal—and creative—outdoor learning spaces right outside elementary classrooms. “We have mountains all around and it’s absolutely gorgeous,” Perry says. “We want our kids outside.”

‘The good that can come from school’

A Montana native, Perry says there is a misconception that education is not highly valued on Indian reservations. Still, a challenge the superintendent and his team face is a side effect of the large number of Arlee students who are being raised by their grandparents.

“Our guardians have a tendency to skip a generation,” Perry says. “Some of the guardians of our current students don’t understand what the landscape of education looks like, that it’s no longer a teacher standing in front of the room and just lecturing and trying to get kids to understand the instruction.”

Staff also sometimes have trouble connecting with guardians who had bad experiences in school. “We get a good amount of pushback from some grandparents when we contact them about issues we may be having with a student,” he says. “Some of those grandparents attended boarding schools and were unbelievably mistreated so they don’t have in their minds the good that can come from school.”

Arlee is also dealing with a severe shortage of classified staff. Recruiting bus drivers, custodians and paraprofessionals has been “10 times harder” than hiring teachers. He has received zero applications this year for vacant bus driver and custodian positions. “With the change in what people can make in other professions, to get someone to be a special education paraprofessional for what we can afford to pay them is almost impossible,” he points out. “We can’t afford to increase pay like a private business can.”

‘We care about them everywhere’

Arlee’s educators are now devoting much of their focus to literacy, particularly reading comprehension, across the K12 curriculum. “We will do all we can to bring in parents, guardians to get them involved, to show how important reading is,” he says. “If we make a concerted effort in that area, I think we’re going to see growth everywhere else.”

Perry also prioritizes staying involved in the day-to-day life of his schools, a task he says is easier in a smaller district. He helps coach high school volleyball, is licensed to cover bus routes, fills in as a substitute teacher and often drives several hours to Arlee’s away games, among other activities. He believes he’s also the first superintendent in decades who has lived in the Arlee community.

“I make sure students know that I’m interested in them 24/7—it’s not just when they’re on their campus. We care about how they’re doing everywhere,” he concludes.

The post How this superintendent is giving his educators the freedom to change K12 education appeared first on District Administration.

“We try to offer a very wide breadth of programming—extracurricular and academic—that outmatches our size,” says Smith, who after seven years leading the Point Pleasant Beach School District was named New Jersey’s 2023 Superintendent of the Year.

What Smith is most excited about right now is the expansion of what his district calls “Gull Flight School”—which is not an aeronautics program. Rather, it gives students a chance to soar academically with more than 40 dual-enrollment courses in conjunction with nearby Ocean County College, Smith explains.

“We’re seeing more and more students get so many credits in high school, they’re entering college with a full year under their belts,” he continues. “And our parents and community members are now understanding how much of a tuition savings that is.”

More from DA: Teacher morale has not totally tanked. And here are 5 ways to rebuild it. 

The expansion of Gull Flight School is a natural outgrowth of one of the district’s most distinctive achievements. Point Pleasant Beach schools often have among the highest percentage of students taking AP classes in New Jersey. “Sometimes it’s hard for little schools to stand out because we can’t do as much,” Smith explains. “Our conversations are about access, and equity through access and how do you get all students to work at the level they’re capable of—and we believe in that work and we’ve made great strides.”

The other big initiative that has Smith fired up is Point Pleasant Beach schools’ “gamified” staff wellness program. The district offers free yoga and gym workouts and dozens of other events and activities in which teachers and other staff can win rewards. “Our tagline is ‘A healthy staff room is a healthy classroom,'” Smith says. “We believe that by attending to the social-emotional needs of our staff members, we get better performance out of everybody.”

How Point Pleasant Beach schools tackle challenges

Keeping Smith up at night is enrollment in his district. The community sustained heavy damage in Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and many older houses have been demolished and replaced by more expensive homes. This has made it harder for young families to settle in Point Pleasant Beach. The district has about 100 tuition-paying students, and its wide range of projects is a key selling point.

For instance, Smith and the school board found a way to maintain AP language programs even though only a handful of students were enrolled in the courses. Computer science and engineering classes were added when the district converted the high school media center into an “innovation collaboratory.” And when students asked for business classes for two years, the district launched a business program.

“We build what needs to be built,” Smith says. “We try to be responsive to what the needs are and we try to read the tea leaves for what’s going to position our students best for their post-secondary outcomes and dreams.”

One key to all these efforts is maintaining a strong working relationship with the school board and its president, in particular. That means Smith and his team try to be transparent when explaining the rationale behind their decisions to board members. It’s also important to remain flexible in adapting to the styles of communication and leadership of each school board member. Finally, establishing boundaries between the roles of district staff and elected officials also fosters productive working relationships.

“It’s not always rainbows and unicorns, but it’s an open line of communication,” Smith concludes. “If you continually remind everyone we have to be doing what’s in the best interest of kids—that’s what’s going to drive our programming, that’s where our budget’s going to go, that’s what every move is about—it helps you keep some of the ancillary challenges at bay.”

The post How this superintendent is amping up the power of his small N.J. district appeared first on District Administration.

Enabling new forms of interaction between educators and students, and more effectively personalizing learning are among the potential benefits of AI, the agency says in its new report, “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Teaching and Learning: Insights and Recommendations.” But the risks include a range of safety and privacy concerns and algorithmic bias.

Educators and policymakers should collaborate on the following principles:

1. Emphasize humans-in-the-loop: Educators and students can remain firmly at the center of AI if users treat edtech like an electric bike rather than a robot vacuum. On an electric bike, humans are fully aware and fully in control, and their efforts are multiplied by technological enhancement. Robot vacuums complete their tasks with little human involvement or oversight beyond activating the device.
2. Align AI models to a shared vision for education: The educational needs of students should be at the forefront of AI policies. “We especially call upon leaders to avoid romancing the magic of AI or only focusing on promising applications or outcomes, but instead to interrogate with a critical eye how AI-enabled systems and tools function in the educational environment,” the Department of Education says.
3. Design AI using modern learning principles: The first wave of adaptive edtech incorporated important principles such as sequencing instruction and giving students feedback. However, these systems were often deficit-based, focusing on the student’s weakest areas. “We must harness AI’s ability to sense and build upon learner strengths,” the Department of Education asserts.
4. Prioritize strengthening trust: There are concerns that AI will replace—rather than assist—teachers. Educators, students and their families need to be supported as they build trust in edtech. Otherwise, lingering distrust of AI could distract from innovation in tech-enabled teaching and learning.
5. Inform and involve educators: Another concern is that AI will lead to a loss of respect for educators and their skills just as the nation is experiencing teacher shortages and declining interest in the profession. To convince teachers they are valued, they must be involved in designing, developing, testing, improving, adopting, and managing AI-enabled edtech.
6. Focus R&D on addressing context and enhancing trust and safety: Edtech developers should focus design efforts on “the long tail of learning variability” to ensure large populations of students will benefit from AI’s ability to customize learning.
7. Develop education-specific guidelines and guardrails: Data privacy laws such as the Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act (FERPA), the Children’s Internet Privacy Act (CIPA), and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) should be reviewed and updated in the context of advancing educational technology. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) could also be reevaluated as new accessibility technologies emerge.

More from DA: Why your fellow superintendents are facing more no-confidence votes

The post How should we teach with AI? The feds have 7 fresh edtech ideas appeared first on District Administration.

The most high-profile leader to endure a no-confidence vote this spring is Superintendent Jesus Jara of Nevada’s Clark County School District, the nation’s fifth-largest school system. The Clark County Education Association, the state’s largest educators union, announced earlier this year that 75% of its members have lost confidence in Jara, who has been the district’s superintendent for five years.

“Graduation rates are suspect, proficiency levels continue to be chronically low, the disparities between our most at-risk students and everyone else continue to widen and our students are fundamentally not college or career ready upon leaving CCSD,” the union charged. In an even more recent survey, the union claims more than 70% of likely Clark County voters want Jara to be fired.

Jara also received a vote of no-confidence from an administrators union in 2019 but the school board has renewed his contract twice—including once after firing him, the Las Vegas Sun reports.

‘No confidence’ is trending

Boston-area school districts appear to be a hotbed of anti-administration activity. During contract negotiations earlier this month, the Educational Association of Worcester voted no-confidence in Worcester Public Schools Superintendent Rachel Monárrez, the school board, the city’s mayor, the city manager and the city council. The vote was taken after the school board asked mediators from the Massachusetts Department of Labor Relations to help with the negotiations, according to the Telegram & Gazette. 

In a near-unanimous vote, members of the teachers union in Holliston Public Schools last week voted no-confidence in Superintendent Susan Kustka for “failure to provide a supportive work environment” where educators feel safe and can flourish, according to AFT Massachusetts. The union says Kustka has not given teachers a decision-making role or been able to reverse Holliston’s high rate of teacher turnover. The district, which has 375 staff positions, has had 216 new staff members in the past two-and-a-half years, AFT Massachusetts asserts.

Also in the midst of contract negotiations, nearly 95% of the members of the Wellesley Educators Association voted no-confidence in Wellesley Public Schools Superintendent David Lussier and the district’s school board. The union took action in March when the school board recommended going into mediation even though teachers had already made some concessions, The Boston Globe reported. Earlier this month, however, the union reached a tentative contract agreement with the district.

As we celebrate our tentative agreement with the Wellesley School Committee, and continue to work to conclude an especially challenging school year, here are a few things won through the WEA's continued solidarity for 14 months. #fairfive #unionsolidarity pic.twitter.com/SAdyEGXfY3

— WEA (@WEAunion) May 13, 2023

The unions representing teachers at Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School, Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical School and Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical School District have all voted no-confidence in their superintendents, according to local reports. Assabet Valley’s teachers have been working without a contract for the past two-and-a-half years, MetroWest Daily News reported, while Superintendent Kathleen Dawson of the Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical School District has been put on administrative leave, according to YourArlington.com.

More from DA: A surprise firing and 2 suspensions mark ongoing shuffle of K12 leadership

And in Salem, Massachusetts, it’s parents who are urging the school board to hold a no-confidence vote on Superintendent Margarita Ruiz.

Three unions—representing teachers, principals and supervisors—voted no-confidence in Superintendent Rachel Goldberg of Springfield Public Schools in New Jersey, TAPintoSpringfield reported. The trio of organizations argues that spending and staffing have been cut and schedules have been changed without sufficient input from district employees, according to the website.

No-confidence votes aren’t only the product of testy contract negotiations and financial constraints. In Ohio’s Orange City School District, the teachers union voted no-confidence in Superintendent Lynn Campbell and the administrative team due to safety concerns, including when some sections of the district’s high school were not notified when the building went into lockdown recently, Fox 8 News reported.

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