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Date: 10/24/2023
AMHERST — At the Oct. 17 meeting of the Joint Regional and Union 26 School Committee, discussions went beyond the search process going forward in the selection of a new, permanent superintendent. Following assessments of three search firms, one of which would be potentially contracted to assist in the candidate identification, interim Superintendent Doug Slaughter initiated a dialogue with committee members regarding the potential release of information contained in the Title IX investigation report that resulted in the departure of former Superintendent Michael Morris, the resignation of several members of the school committee and administrative leave placement of three middle school staffers, the assistant superintendent and at least two discrimination complaints.
Slaughter acknowledged the limitations involved with the release of information concerning the Title IX investigation into allegations of improper treatment and harassment of student members of the LGBTQIA+ at the middle school at the hands of staffers there.
“Under advice of council, the Title IX reports, the most recent investigative report from the Just Training [Solutions], Inc., which is led by Ed Mitnik, we’ve received those reports, we’re still in process on Title IX but in consideration with both the investigator, Mr. Mitnik and our council, all of those are considered to be personnel records which means they’re private and so we’ve expressed that publicly a number of times,” he said.
Recognizing the calls, questions and a community desire for more information to be made public regarding the allegations and the investigation, Slaughter offered a proposal for the release of some details while remining within the guidelines set forth in the rules governing confidentiality.
“The approach I’m considering and working on currently and it’ll take a little bit to go through and partly because we need to finish some of our Title IX process, is to pull out some of the findings or most of the findings as best we can to decouple them from individuals and talk about what did or did not happen, that should have or should not have happened and build essentially a frame of the things that occurred, without being specific to the particulars of the cases but are instructive to us as far as what are our actions what are corrective actions, what are our process moving forward to prevent these this things, “ he said.
Slaughter also stated that some of the information released and acknowledged might include items and allegations not substantiated but nevertheless should be recognized as incidents that the district should be vigilant about preventing, even if they are merely presumed to have happened.
Acknowledging the release of the information was not equal to the delivery of the Title IX reports, Slaughter noted that the reports themselves involve personnel records and personal records are confidential and should remain so.
Responding to committee member Jennifer Shaio’s question of what information the released reports will illustrate, Slaughter called the plan, “a work in progress.”
Chair Irv Rhodes said, “There are things that we will be able to do through Doug because there’s an incredible community interest but most importantly, the most important thing is we have to bring this to closure,” he said. “The community has to have some sense of closure, so whatever we can do to speed that process up we will do.”
Slaughter also said he does recognize that committee and community members have been seeking more information about what happened and what will happen as a result of the investigation.
“I think there’s a way to kind of construct that in a productive way and focuses on us as a district and you as a school committee but also as the district at large in what are next steps are, what our corrective actions, what is our process and procedural changes that we’re going to make to sort of mitigate or eliminate these kinds of things happening in the future,” he said.
Calling it imperfect relative to seeing the particular details of the Title IX report, Slaughter stated that this would be the approach to be taken and that drafts of any information for potential release would be run through the council to allow for review, member questions and input.