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Date: 7/5/2022
AMHERST – The Amherst Regional School Committee (ARSC) and Amherst School Committee (ASC) both submitted a positive review of Superintendent Michael Morris with a summative evaluation of his performance during the 2021-2022 school year at their meetings on June 28.
The evaluations were completed by eight ARSC members and five ASC members who served during the 2021-2022 school year, however, only one section had all eight responses from the ARSC committee which Chair Ben Herrington said could have been a technical difficulty.
Across both districts, Morris’ overall performance rating received seven proficient ratings, four exemplary and one needs improvement. The proficient rating was considered to be fully satisfactory and the “rigorous expected level of performance” according to the document, while exemplary significantly exceeds proficient and “could serve as a model of practice regionally or statewide.” Committee members rated Morris’ impact on student learning as moderate four times and high eight times.
“One of the things that was mentioned by multiple members was the collaborative approach that Mike uses in projects and multiple members also commented seeking broad stakeholder input on major initiatives such as the school building project and using multiple methods for that,” said ASC Chair Allison McDonald.
Both committees had similar ratings on Morris’ job achieving the individual goals they outlined, including the development of plans for sixth grade students moving to Amherst Regional Middle School, continued progress on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion at ARPS and to provide effective fiscal year 2023 budget planning and communication. Forty-four of the 59 responses, or nearly 75 percent, said that Morris met or exceeded the goals while the worst rating he received on any goal was “some progress” five times.
The cumulative tally of his ratings for meeting the district’s standards was even stronger. Morris received 44 of the 49 proficient or exemplary ratings with the remaining five saying some areas needed improvement. The standards included instructional leadership, management and operations, family and community engagement and professional culture related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
“It’s our responsibility as a school committee to assess the job that we see and to let the public know how we’re seeing the job that’s being done,” said committee member Peter Demling. “To approach this with the idea that the superintendent has room for improvement in all of his areas of performance is not the same as a [needs improvement] rating on the state’s superintendent evaluation metric. I think it’s OK to acknowledge that after six years, Dr. Morris has demonstrated consistently excellent performance.”
Demling continued, “It doesn’t mean we don’t disagree on some things, but in my view he’s a tremendous asset to this school district. You don’t have to look far geographically across the state or across the river to see that when the relationship between the superintendent and the community or school committee breaks down, it damages the school district for a long time. We’re fortunate to have somebody who we’ve worked with for so long, we have such a good working relationship, and whose skills are such a good match to the unique demands of our district.”
Morris said he appreciated all the feedback from the evaluations and meetings and encouraged committee members to approach him throughout the year individually or at meetings with their perspective and input, saying he has always used it to learn from and about members.
“I want to acknowledge the tremendous work of the full team,” Morris said. “There’s very little in this world that I do independently. Very, very little. I think we’re a unique district in that we’ve got people like [Assistant Superintendent for Diversity, Equity and Human Resources] Doreen [Cunningham] and [Office Administrator] Faye [Brady] and [Director of Student Services] Marta [Guevara], a number of central office staff who have been in similar roles for now quite a few years together. We talk about it often, that consistency helps us work on goals that may look like one-year goals, but really like the [diversity, equity and inclusion] goal, that’s been a goal for 30 years if not more in this district.”
Reviews from the evaluation largely concluded that Morris has consistently demonstrated the qualities of a strong, thoughtful leader, communicator and educator with skillful budget management and preparation.
“From helping to foster an ever increasingly more diverse workforce to allowing for and solicitation of input from more and more stakeholders, Dr. Morris has been a more than capable leader for our district and has championed our educators and learners all along the way,” said a respondent.