Aliyya Swaby Photo
Jones-Generette.
Superintendent Garth Harries has accepted a transfer request from Barnard Environmental Studies School Principal Yolanda Jones-Generette, following a 36 – 3 “no confidence vote” by teachers.
Harries has been negotiating with the teachers union and district leaders on how to resolve issues of leadership, student behavior and instruction since the start of the school year, a process that intensified since the vote in early March. He said he had not yet ruled Jones-Generette out for another position as principal of a different school.
District leaders are figuring out “how to give her the best opportunity to develop where her skills can be best used,” Harries said. “Given the challenges of this situation at Barnard, she doesn’t want to be a leader in a place where leadership is not welcome or accepted.”
The head of the school adminsitrators’ union, meanwhile, this week called the criticism of Jones-Generette and other principals a form of “lynch-mobbing.”
Jones-Generette may be transferred to another school as principal or to another position in central office, he said. Harries moved her from Lincoln-Bassett School to Barnard in 2014 after a state audit showed tension among faculty, high rates of student and teacher absenteeism and a spike in suspensions. He said recently he does not regret the decision to transfer her to Barnard.
Last summer, several teachers and parents spoke to the Independent about tension in the school regarding Jones-Generette’s leadership and management of the K‑8 school. Suspensions more than doubled between last academic year and the one before it, with Barnard seeing the highest number of suspensions in at least four years — from 19 in 2012 – 13 to 76 in 2014 – 15.
District Director of Instruction Ilene Tracey took an informal, anonymous “climate check” of teachers last May and recorded concerns about top-down management, a lack of transparency from administrators, and a lack of support for dealing with major disciplinary issues.
As leaders negotiated in the past few weeks, they developed a plan to improve the school for the rest of the year and in subsequent years.
Harries said they will renew a contract with the ALIVE program to provide support for student trauma. He said he thinks the loss of funding for this program contributed to the rise in suspensions and behavioral problems.
The school will also have a full-time social worker and psychologist, instead of a part-time worker, and teachers will have more time to collaborate to work on student behavior and school climate, he said.
Union Prez: “Lynch Mobbing”
Cheryl Brown, president of the administrators union, said at this past Monday’s Board of Education meeting that principals have been attacked unfairly by district leaders who are ignoring contractually “defined processes and protocols” for evaluating them. Principals have met all of the qualifications for their jobs, including getting certification and passing evaluations, she said.
“What has been happening recently from Hillhouse to Barnard has never been seen in New Haven Public Schools before,” she said.
“It’s time to realize that this is a form of lynch mobbing,” Brown said. “This head hunting needs to stop.”
Brown previously said Barnard teachers were “conspiring” against Jones-Generette to “deflect” attention when teacher evaluations were due.
(Update) Dave Cicarella, president of the teachers union, said in a statement that he was concerned that in the past three years, most administrators had been rated “effective” or higher, and not “needs improvement” or “developing.”
“While the NHFT disagrees with the superintendent about the appropriateness of another principal or assistant principal position, we absolutely agree with his assertion that Yolanda needs to be placed in an assignment where her skill set can best be used (to help our students and the school district) and puts her in a position to be successful,” Cicarella said in the statement.
The teachers union and administrators union have been fighting about how to allow teachers to evaluate their principals, previously done in the form of a climate survey, until teachers and administrators clashed about the survey format in 2014. Teachers started to opt out of completing the survey last year.
Harries said a committee has been working to resolve that tension. “The purpose of the survey is to provide feedback and growth opportunity for folks,” he said. But principals felt the survey would publicly single their performance out. “We want folks not to feel singled out,” Harries said.
“The reality is that from the start of school reform, our orientation…has been to improve staff” and to consider consequences when necessary, he said. “One of the reasons to do the surveys is so stakeholders within the school can be reflected” to improve student learning.