Reasons Hingham Education Association Voted “No Confidence” In Superintendent Adams

December 12, 2023 By The Hingham Education Association 

Over 400 members of the full Hingham Education Association participated in a vote of no confidence in Superintendent Adams’s leadership of Hingham Public Schools. The vote passed with 96% voting in favor. Staff across Hingham’s six schools gathered to vote on the statement today and express deep concerns on behalf of their colleagues, students, and school community. Attempts to address these concerns with the Superintendent have unfortunately been met with mostly indifference and resistance, further exacerbating anxiety about the future of Hingham Public Schools. Staff did not take this step lightly; they did so only after discussion and reflection on such a solemn statement. Members of the HEA hope that this vote will encourage the School Committee and Superintendent to take the expertise and concerns of Hingham’s staff more seriously.

In the HEA’s full statement of no confidence (http://tinyurl.com/HEAsuperVNC), staff cited 26 specific reasons under the categories of understaffing, school safety, transparency, observations, and equity. Reasons include: Superintendent Adams has failed to communicate adequately with staff and the community on numerous occasions, both proactively and upon request. This has resulted in growing feelings of distrust, confusion, anxiety, and demoralization. Even after widespread staff and community concerns with leadership choices regarding police activity at Hingham Middle School, we have not seen meaningful changes in how Dr. Adams approaches safety concerns. When threats have been brought to her attention for a response, she has not presented sufficient solutions and has been reluctant to, or resolute against, administrators informing staff and implementing ideas.

Superintendent Adams has failed to adequately staff the schools and enforce good hiring practices. Among other concerns, the lack of sufficient paraeducator staffing across the District has persisted since September and shows no sign of improving. This has negatively impacted the learning experiences of students missing the support to which they are entitled.

Under Superintendent Adams’ leadership, there has not been meaningful progress on equity issues. Staff are deeply troubled by circumventions of the IEP process that disregard educator expertise, student need, and safety issues. We are also concerned by the reluctance to consistently and quickly provide routine accommodations for staff with temporary disabilities. Additionally, while members of the HEA fight for paid parental leave during negotiations, some non-birthing parents at HPS have not even been granted equitable access to their own sick time for bonding with a newborn. Dr. Adams’s changing views on this subject are confusing, disheartening, and actively harmful to staff and their families.

While members of the HEA appreciate the collaborative work done to pass an override last year and understand how it could result in exemplary reviews of Superintendent Adams from the Hingham School Committee, they also hope that this vote of no confidence will still encourage reflection on the part of Dr. Adams and the Committee, as well as result in positive changes to reach our common goals of safety, equity, and excellence in our schools. Jacqueline Beaupre, science teacher and President of the HEA reflected, “We are saddened that this vote needed to happen, but resolved in its outcome, and committed to making sure the needs of staff and students are heard.

Through a democratic process, members asked each other to reflect on current leadership and the results speak for themselves. We hope Superintendent Adams and the Hingham School Committee will recognize it’s significance and be open to change.”

Reasons:
1. Superintendent Adams has failed to adequately staff the schools and enforce good hiring practices.

•  IEPs are continually being violated as vulnerable students have been left without proper paraeducator support since September. The number of 1:1 paraeducators for students with moderate needs is declining while an unreasonable number of students are being supported by single paraeducators. There are not enough paraeducators to fulfill routine accommodations, such as separate and small group settings for assessments. These issues are not being transparently shared with the community.
•  The substitute pool has improved since COVID but is still insufficient, resulting in ad hoc coverage. Specialists and paras are increasingly asked to cover elementary classes. Secondary level classes have been turned into studies—resulting in the loss of instructional time—and paras are pulled to cover, without additional pay and leaving students unsupported.
• Delay or refusal to fill vacated positions has resulted in decreased Hingham High School course offerings, some understaffed departments and increased class sizes, particularly nursing, counseling, SPED, and custodial/maintenance. Some applications took over a month to process, and some applicants claim to never have received a response. By not honoring out-of-district or contractor experience, excellent applicants were driven away, leaving the positions filled at the last minute or left unfilled for several months, overextending existing staff to cover gaps.
•  After multiple warnings, the HEA was forced to file official complaints to ensure new hires are reported per Massachusetts General Law, as well as adequately notified of their benefits and contract.
• Though successful in passing an override, it has become clear during negotiations that Superintendent Adams failed to craft a budget that would account for the salary needs of the upcoming year. This is despite having started negotiations and known about the demand for a Living Wage for paraeducators.
• Superintendent Adams has failed to support good faith negotiations, often remaining silent during bargaining sessions even once when explicitly asked for comment—and unresponsive to proposals addressing issues in our schools. Staff need compensation, benefits, and working conditions that will demonstrate their value to this community, attract qualified applicants for open positions, and retain experienced staff during a slowly unfolding staffing crisis in schools nationwide. This includes a Living Wage for paraeducators, fair COLAs, paid parental leave, adequate SPED prep time, and incentives for veteran staff to contribute their expertise via committees, task forces, and advisory boards.
• Top-down directives pushing Universal Design for Learning, small group instruction, and collapsedleveling have not included adequate staffing to ensure sufficient co-planning/prep time and co-teacher/paraeducator support. In addition to developmentally inappropriate curricula and unrealistic pacing, this reduction in teacher autonomy has contributed to extensive educator burnout and demoralization.

2. Superintendent Adams and her Central Office staff have failed to communicate adequately with staff and the community on numerous occasions, both proactively and upon request. This has resulted in growing feelings of distrust, confusion, anxiety, and demoralization.

• Superintendent Adams’ lack of transparency following the arrest of a substitute teacher at the Hingham Middle School was astounding. It is common sense to notify staff and guardians when there is police action on school grounds during the school day. The absence of communication regarding the incident itself and substitute hiring practices left a harmful vacuum.
• There has been a lack of transparency and communication for other security issues since the one at HMS. Staff have felt unsafe, unsupported, and ignored. Dr. Adams did not respond in a timely manner to urgent security questions and concerns. She has repeatedly refused to quickly implement ideas or share critical safety information, claiming privacy issues bar even the vaguest levels of information. Staff cannot keep themselves or students safe if not informed and their expertise heeded.
• Superintendent Adams was not a present or visible leader during the recent evacuation and relocation of Foster Elementary students to the High School due to a water main break. Times of significant disruption for our youngest learners warrants the presence of leadership.
• Superintendent Adams was not present at the High School during the response to a major water leak which resulted in relocating an entire wing and canceling school. Abdicating leadership responsibilities to building administrators and educators leaves staff questioning priorities.
• During last year’s budget crisis, Central Office was not able to provide a helpful seniority list- it had significant numbers of errors and did not account for staff with multiple licenses. Superintendent Adams also refused to notify staff who were on her list to be laid off, ignoring the contractual deadline to provide this information. It was more convenient and politically expedient for passing an override to leave educators in a state of anxiety for most of the school year.
• Routine emails from HEA members and leaders often go unanswered for weeks or never receive a response at all. Superintendent Adams has not established an expectation that Central office staff respond to staff emails, exhibiting a lack of respect for the employees of Hingham Public Schools.
• There was no communication from the Superintendent’s office regarding the death of a recent graduate. Loss of life is a deeply felt community tragedy and should be acknowledged by leadership.

3. Superintendent Adams’ presence in classrooms is excessive, unproductive, and often disruptive.

• Staff have been welcoming and adjusted to this new practice, but question its continued frequency and value. Visits often result in micromanaging criticisms that push personal preferences and top-down directives rather than meaningful or positive feedback.
• When circulating with principals and department chairs, Dr. Adams often needs prompting and help engaging with students, as standing on the side watching is visually distracting and awkward. When shadowing students, she does not model appropriate classroom behavior; she is highly distracted by her phone and has occasionally failed to thank or even acknowledge staff.

4. Under Superintendent Adams’ leadership, Hingham Public Schools has continued to be plagued by a multitude of frustrating payroll errors, including several apparent Wage Law violations. These errors cause undue stress, both financially and due to the time and effort needed to get them corrected. Ensuring that staff are paid correctly is a critical employer responsibility, yet Dr. Adams has not taken ownership or made it a priority to correct.

• Numerous staff members have not been paid full wages at various times, constituting Wage Law violations that the HEA is looking into legal assistance to rectify and may bring to the Attorney General. A handful of paraeducators and educators have missed entire paychecks, custodial staff have missed overtime, and deductions have been erroneously duplicated or entered.
•  Overpayments requiring recoupment were not bargained with the union and simply forced upon staff at unreasonable repayment rates. In at least one instance affecting several paraeducators, this recoupment forced them below the minimum wage— another serious Wage Law violation.
• Payroll deposits are no longer issued to staff on the day when the money is transferred to the individual’s account. While this seems trivial, it makes it more difficult to catch the numerous errors in payroll and has contributed to the problem. Though concerns about this situation have been raised, Superintendent Adams has refused to take any leadership or responsibility.
• Related to 2f, communication regarding payroll errors is insufficient— minimal or absent. Staff have paychecks altered without any communication from Central Office and cannot get timely responses regarding the reason for errors or the plan to correct them.

5. Under Superintendent Adams’ leadership, there has not been meaningful progress on equity issues and occasionally further harm has been caused to vulnerable students and staff.

• Central Office has permitted the circumvention of the IEP Team Process with respect to student behaviors and disregarded the professional recommendations of staff working with those students. This has also jeopardized the physical and emotional safety of students and staff in several schools.
• Though a full program evaluation is now underway, recommendations from the 2017-2018 HMS SPED program evaluation still have not been fully implemented—notably a need for more adequate staffing and co-planning time.
• The company chosen to do the recent equity audit failed to perform any statistical analysis on survey data. Conclusions and recommendations could have been more adequately supported.
• Recommendations for changes at Central Office have not been substantively implemented to support efforts for recruitment, hiring, and retention of a more diverse staff.
• Staff with temporary disabilities have had routine accommodations delayed in approval or refused.
• Dr. Adams has not consistently approved access to sick time for parental leave for non-birthing parents at HPS, causing significant confusion and stress for new parents and growing families.