Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Teacher Retention topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Former special-education teacher says she left for her mental health; committee advances exit-survey pilot discussion
Summary
A former Middleborough High School special-education teacher told the school committee she resigned for mental-health reasons and criticized some administrators; the committee’s exit-survey task force reviewed a draft survey and recommended a one-year pilot with HR and legal review to protect confidentiality.
During public comment, former special-education teacher Liz Tobin told the School Committee she left her position "for my mental health," said she had experienced unsupportive and uncommunicative behavior from some administrators and offered to provide an exit letter or take part in exit interviews.
Tobin said she had spent 15 years serving the community, had taken pay cuts to remain in the classroom and is available for follow-up: "I left for my mental health," she told the committee, offering to provide her resignation letter on request.
Later in the meeting committee members and task-force representatives presented an update from the exit-survey Task Force, which met three times in March to review retention data, discuss confidentiality and outline next steps. The group recommended further refinement of a draft survey that is intended to collect trend information rather than to single out individuals, and proposed a one-year pilot to test survey logistics and reporting.
The task force flagged implementation issues for a small district: who administers the survey (town HR vs. superintendent's office), whether anonymity can be preserved with small sample sizes, the need for legal review and consultation with the employee union. As one task-force member put it during discussion, "we think using this draft survey in a pilot scenario like a one-year pilot might be something we'd be interested in." The committee discussed pairing exit surveys with a periodic employee-satisfaction survey to collect proactive feedback.
On procedural business the committee also authorized a member to continue serving on the READS Collaborative board: the motion to allow the named committee member to serve "passed unanimously." The transcript did not record a roll-call tally nor specify the mover and seconder in the minutes provided.
The task force and district leaders said next steps include legal review of the draft survey, discussions with the union and a pilot implementation to produce an anonymized trend report for the committee to review in October.
