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Date: 11/8/2022
AMHERST – On Oct. 31 Martha Toro, a retired teacher in the Amherst Regional Public Schools (ARPS) district, sent a letter to the ARPS community along with members of the press, stating her frustration with the district’s hiring practices and staffing decisions. Toro stated that she was speaking on behalf of many ARPS faculty who wish to voice their discontent, but fear retaliation or losing their jobs. ARPS Superintendent Michael Morris rebutted the claims two days later in an email sent to all ARPS staff members.
Toro spent the last 10 of her 34 years teaching in ARPS.
“At the beginning of my tenure in the Amherst Regional Public Schools, the educational quality, staff appreciation and communication with administration that I had come to know as a parent were evident in my position as a teacher, interim principal and interim assistant principal. Unfortunately, for the past four years, I have seen the district degrading and corroding from within,” she said.
Toro feels that much of these issues stem from changes made to the hiring process, specifically the at the interview stage that was introduced about five years ago. Prior to the change there was a single interview team who selected the candidates to intereview.
“There are now two separate teams; the first team only looks at resumes and selects candidates to interview, and the second team interviews the candidates without ever seeing the resumes … The interview team must rely only on the candidate’s answers to the questions, which are prescribed, pre-written questions. The interview team does not have any information to fall back on or to compare to ascertain if these answers are valid or not,” she said.
Toro went on to reference her own experience regarding the fault in this practice.
“I have interviewed, and been interviewed, many times, and have learned that there are many things that can interfere with an answer to a question. This includes, but is not limited to, perspective, cultural, language or regional communication differences, understanding of the question, expectations of the interviewers and other multiple possible misunderstandings,” she said.
She added that she was concerned about the single interview conducted when hiring for positions.
“How can a candidate be chosen by a team with only one, 45-minute interview, without any prior knowledge of the education or experience of the candidate? This process does not follow best practices nor is it in line with the research of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), recruitment, hiring and retention. For example, many institutions redact the name, address and age of candidates to reduce conscious and unconscious bias, but the resume and cover letter remain important documents to illustrate answers regarding relevant experience against,” Toro said.
Despite holding six teaching licenses, being bilingual and over 30 years of educational service, Toro reports being turned down for six administrative positions which she applied for throughout her time in the district. When she contacted Human Resources for feedback, she never got a reply.
“This hiring process was purportedly developed to create more access and equity for candidates of color, yet white non-Hispanic candidates were selected (one of whom was not yet licensed) in four of the six positions for which I applied … Adding to the injustice of my treatment,” she said. “I witnessed several of my colleagues being terminated from their positions, allegedly for lack of an appropriate state license, while the people who replaced these colleagues themselves lack the appropriate licensure for the positions. In several of these cases, the new hires were non-Hispanic white people, and my colleagues were Latinas.”
Toro claims that “nepotism and corruption are now rampant in the district.”
She said, “It is widely known that administrators without the appropriate qualifications and licenses have been hired without being subject to the hiring process. It is also known that family members of top administrators have been hired for positions in the district.”
She also referenced a pattern of incidents wherein these hiring decisions have had negative consequences for students and faculty alike.
“I have observed and colleagues have witnessed the director of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Human Resources make unilateral hiring decisions, even opposing principals’ wishes. One example of this was the hiring of a new principal for Fort River School [for the 2020-2021 school year]. The principal was hired without having to go through the regular hiring process. This resulted in a fast failure; by October of 2020, the staff spoke up and was nearing a vote of no confidence. The principal left, leaving the school too quickly to secure a replacement,” Toro said.
Toro also referenced a situation where a teacher was going to be terminated despite “good evaluations and years of experience.”
In another situation, co-principals were hired at the middle school and Toro said, “It was a disaster from which the middle school is still recuperating.” She added both principals had left by the end of the 2019-2020 school year.
Beyond the hiring practices themselves, Toro stated that “a culture of fear pervading the district prevents staff members from publicly stating their shared observations, namely that the changes in the hiring process are being ignored by the same administrators who established it.”
She said that the few faculty members who have started to speak out have been told to “back off” by the district. She said that when faculty go to the union to file a grievance, the union will not file it, and that it is very hard to reach the Human Resources department, which she alleged is staffed “maybe one day a week.”
ARPS Superintendent Michael Morris sent out a response to all ARPS staff on Nov. 2 refuting Toro’s claims.
“This new hiring process was developed with extensive opportunities for stakeholder input and through the work of a committee of community stakeholders, district employees from many schools and departments and administrators from across the district. It was presented to the School Committee for their feedback prior to implementation in 2017-2018 … the districts’ number of employees of color increased dramatically since the implementation of the revised hiring process, with the 2021-2022 school year having the greatest number and percentage of staff members of color ever in ARPS … It is also notable that during this period where we have seen significant increases in staff diversity in the district, the statewide staff diversity averages remained flat, making the changes in ARPS even more remarkable. I would be quite surprised if there was another district in our state that saw these rapid changes over this five-year period. These changes have been reflected among all roles and departments in the district.”
According to the data in Morris’s email, Black employment within ARPS has risen 67.5 percent over the past six years. Latinx employment has risen 54 percent, while Asian employment rose 140 percent.
However, in an interview with Reminder Publishing after the letter, Toro was adamant that there were problems in ARPS that must be urgently addressed.
“In the last four or five years, things have gotten more tense in the district, and I believe that the leadership is kind of of turning their head the other way. They don’t want to deal with certain things. It’s affecting the mood of teachers it’s affecting performance.”
As far as resolution, Toro feels the district should be audited.
“I think there are some issues with the ethics of the procedures, and I think there should be an audit [of the district], an investigation to see where exactly [the problem lies]; if it’s the whole administration or if it’s only parts of it,” she said. “But something needs to happen, because the highly qualified teachers that have been lost, the lack of addressing the needs of students properly because teachers are so frustrated, upset, and overwhelmed; it’s concerning.”