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Date: 8/22/2023
AMHERST — The Amherst-Pelham School District will begin the fall term just as the spring term ended, without Superintendent Michael Morris at the helm. In this most recent case though, the change is permanent.
In a joint statement released on Aug 18, Morris and the Union 26 and Regional School Committees announced they had come to a mutual agreement to end Morris’ seven-year tenure as superintendent.
The statement indicated the change was, “not due to any wrongdoing on Mike’s part.”
The separation announcement came after an Aug. 17 joint meeting of the Amherst Regional School Committee and the Union 26 Committee which promptly entered into executive session for the purpose of discussing matters involving Morris. The executive session was met with criticism by community members who expressed disappointment, citing a lack of transparency.
It was in May that Morris took a medical leave of absence as allegations surfaced of improper conduct by staff directed towards members of the LGBTQIA+ community at the Middle School. During that time, a Title IX Investigation was initiated, three middle school staffers were placed on leave and Amherst Finance Director Douglas Slaughter was installed as acting superintendent.
Slaughter immediately placed Assistant Superintendent Doreen Cunningham on leave pending the outcome of the investigation, the teacher’s union approved a “no confidence” vote against Morris and Cunningham as well. Since then, Cunningham and another educator have filed discrimination complaints against Morris and the district.
Morris returned to his post in July, and soon after revealed plans for professional development and policy updates to help combat the environments that were behind the middle school allegations and subsequent concerns.
Union 26 Representative Peter Demling issued a statement regarding Morris’ departure that read in part:
“This is a profoundly sad day and a tremendous loss for our public schools. Mike was a trusted leader with decades of service to ARPS and a long track-record of promoting LGBTQ rights and putting student well-being at the heart of all his actions. He received consistently high praise from the community over many years and showed time and again to be a person of immense compassion who led by example with humility and kindness. And yet despite all this there was a rush to judge and condemn him without a complete set of facts, spurred on by an APEA leadership openly hostile to school leaders ever since the conflict over COVID; going so far as to misrepresent a so-called ‘vote’ of no confidence in him to justify their actions.”
Halley Kelly, who holds the Non-Binary At-Large seat on the Democratic State Committee responded to the joint statement.
“With Superintendent Morris on the way out, our community can start healing. His exorbitant severance package is just another spit in the face at abused school children. While our community knows that this is an important victory against violent bigotry in our schools, School Committee members Ben Herrington and Peter Demling have bemoaned this as a loss. While I would urge them to think differently, especially before their reelection, it is their prerogative to put themselves in opposition to the marginalized and bullied children they were tasked to protect.”
Amherst Representative Ben Herrington said the joint committee meets again on Aug. 23 where the minutes from the previous executive session can be approved by a vote which would allow for their public release.
“After that, what we will be doing is discussing next steps in terms of replacing the superintendent,” he said.
According to the joint statement, Morris will continue to run the day-to-day district operation through the end of August. An interim superintendent would step into the role as of Sept. 1 with Slaughter a “highly favored candidate “to step back into the role, according to Herrington.
The Title IX investigation is expected to be completed at the same time.
Herrington, who has now also resigned his position from the joint committee said he understands Morris’ decision to step down as superintendent.
“I completely get where he was coming from,” he said. “I think the distraction did make it, the external distraction did make it difficult to do this job in kind of the way he would have wanted to so it’s disappointing but it’s not necessarily surprising based on the circumstances.”