Community Voices is a new series that features letters and brief opinion pieces submitted to The Amherst Current. If you have something that you’d like us to consider, please send it to opinion@theamherstcurrent.org.

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Don’t Rush to Vote on the ARHS Track & Field Project

A vote to end the current high school track and field project is scheduled for next Tuesday’s December 12th meeting of the Regional School Committee. I’d ask the committee to consider that it would be best to postpone this vote until their newly elected members are seated, a few weeks from now in January.

I think that’s the only way that such a vote – whatever the outcome – could have lasting credibility with the public. That there is disagreement about this project in our community has been well established: no matter what happens, some of us won’t be happy with the outcome.

But it will be much more difficult to accept the results if such a major decision is pushed through in the final days of service of temporary appointed members, just before being replaced by publicly elected members.

For many reasons I think the current project will be a tremendous resource for both our community and our students for many years to come, and I sincerely hope it proceeds. But I also understand that not everyone thinks so, and if after sufficient deliberation a majority of publicly elected representatives vote against it, I will be quite saddened; but I will also accept the decision.

With no reason to rush to vote now, I hope the committee will see the value in waiting to take action on this topic until their next meeting in January.

Peter Demling, Amherst School Committee 2017-2023

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Preserving the peace of Amherst’s downtown neighborhoods

I’ve lived on North Prospect St. since 2001 and have shared this house with my wife since 2007. We love living downtown, within walking distance of so many of the things that make Amherst a wonderful place to live.

Our house is now encircled by student rentals owned by absentee landlords. The noise and the mess generated by undergraduates have become too much for my wife and me, and with heavy hearts, we are seriously considering moving away from Amherst. Most likely, we’ll sell our home to one of the local landlords. With our departure, the decimation of our particular corner of downtown Amherst will be nearly complete. 

To be clear: My wife and I are not anti-student; we are against student misbehavior. Here are a few practical ways to deal with the kind of behavior that is making Amherst unlivable for long-term residents:

1. Enforce the four unrelated persons limit for absentee landlord rental properties. 
2. Impose a punitive surcharge on landlords who violate the bylaw. 
3. Use the additional funds obtained through landlord surcharges and other penalties to pay for downtown police patrols on foot or by bicycle.
4. Reduce private vehicular traffic by getting UMass to make it harder for students who live close to the University to park on campus. 
5. Restrict renters’ on-street parking privileges and ticket violators. 

My wife and I enjoy living in a town that is enlivened by the energy of thousands of young people, but we believe that Amherst should not be surrendered to disrespectful young people who are allowed to run amok, destroying so much of what makes Amherst a good place to live. 

Alex Kent

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Public Comment Presented at the Regional School Committee meeting on November 28, 2023

My name is Jon McCabe and I’m the parent of an 8^th Grader at the Amherst Middle School.

I would like to address the recently released Title lX Investigative Report about last year’s troubling events at our Middle School:

First, thank you for this opportunity to speak and for all the work you do as school professionals and committee members.  And thank you for making the Title lX report available to the public.  I strongly recommend that everyone read it carefully.  

Even in redacted form, the report sheds very clear light on the events that took place at our Middle School last year.  But most important, the report underscores several glaring issues that as a parent I hope and expect this Committee and the Superintendent’s office will deal with openly and honestly going forward.

My three main take-aways from the report are as follows:

1. First, hiring and promotion decisions in our school district must be based on professional qualifications and appropriate experience.  I, like so many of us in the district, strongly support hiring policies that actively seek to diversify our workforce, at all levels, to much better reflect our student body. This needs to happen now, and it needs to be done right.  Any honest reading of the report makes clear that some of the worst behavior detailed there was committed by a group of relatively new hires who were brought into the district to help us move forward toward our diversity goals. There is no way you can read this report and not be shocked by some of the words and actions of the school counselors and administrators involved. Read for yourself and see.  
2. Second, proper evaluation and documentation of professional performance on a regular basis is essential. Without documentation, personnel decisions and investigative inquiries, when problems arise, are jeopardized, as the Title lX report makes painfully clear. Hearsay and “he said, she said” is not good enough. 
3. Third and most important, the Title lX report ends with words taken directly from current ARMS policy on harassment prevention: our school professionals, and here I include School Committee members, must be held to, and I quote, “a higher standard of appropriate behavior” when serving our students, their parents, and our town.  

With this requirement in mind, I would like to add my voice to the complaint submitted by members of this committee at the last meeting regarding the inappropriate handling of the strictly confidential, unredacted Title lX report by committee members Jenifer Shiao and Anna Heard.  Whether their irresponsible behavior has opened the school district to legal jeopardy, and possible money damages, remains to be seen.  And whether their conduct constitutes a violation of their responsibility as school committee members, a violation that is worthy of their removal from this board, also remains to be seen.  

Thank you for your time.

Jon McCabe