SOUTH HADLEY — Scott Goldman’s critics described his speech before Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Public Charter School trustees on Tuesday as a “barely restrained tirade.” His lawyer said his client would not “sit back and take the abuse.”
Goldman, the head of school, wasn’t going to leave quietly this June. He announced last fall he would depart at the end of the school year, but, even so, clashes between the administration and a group of teachers, parents and students have intensified in recent months.
On Tuesday, the board of trustees was set to meet in executive session to discuss three grievances and two petitions against Goldman, centering around an atmosphere of fear and intimidation complainants allege Goldman orchestrated with a raised voice and towering presence.
“You only need to know that there is fear, that it is widespread, that it has been intensifying,” teacher Haley Pearl said during the public comment portion of the regular board meeting.
Instead of meeting behind close doors, Goldman opted — as allowed by the state’s Open Meeting Law — to dive into the allegations in public.
Before Goldman spoke, the 12-member board voted near-unanimously to place Goldman on paid administrative leave pending the results of an investigation conducted by six members of the board.
The new panel’s first meeting will be Friday at 4 p.m. in the school library, and is open to the public, Board President Geoff Sumi said.
On Tuesday before trustees, Goldman launched into a speech that lasted almost 40 minutes and was 10 pages long. The six-year veteran of PVPA talked about lowering the school’s dropout rate, addressing staff substance abuse and halting crooked transcript fixing. He talked about fixing budget deficits and revamping staff evaluations.
And he dismissed the allegations, saying they were part of a coordinated attack “by a few disgruntled staff” upset by general management, hiring and firing decisions. He accused the complainers of attempting to ensure when the new head of school takes over this summer that she or he knows it is the staff that runs the school.
“I wholeheartedly and confidently invite a thorough and deliberate review of the complaints, including any improper motivation behind them and potential manipulation by some staff members,” Goldman said, in closing.
“I have also sent this letter to the press,” he added.
At that news, some teachers sitting behind Goldman gasped and groaned.
School attorney James C. Donnelly said PVPA would not release the contents of the two petitions and three grievances.
“Although Mr. Goldman commented on the grievances, he did not waive his right to have them considered in a future executive session rather than an open meeting,” Donnelly said.
The Personnel Advisory Board, which represents staff in the absence of a union, said Goldman mounted an unfair offensive by bringing up the allegations in public — essentially powering through them in a way that only accounted for his version of events and in a way that would identify students and staff.
“Mr. Goldman’s decision to share his long statement in open session forced those bringing grievances to endure further intimidation,” a statement from the advisory board said. “We are so sorry for the families and staff members whose identity is barely concealed.”
Though the school nor the advisory board provided copies of the grievances and petitions, Goldman’s attorney, David S. Monastersky, did.
Two petitions, both dated April 28, seek to diminish Goldman’s role at the school. The first asks the board to remove Goldman’s hiring and firing powers during his last weeks at the school and the second asks for his immediate dismissal. The names on both petitions are hidden, so it is unclear how many people signed them.
A complaint filed on April 5 requests that trustees reconsider a teacher’s request for a year-long leave of absence that administrators denied. Goldman said Tuesday night he recused himself from the decision.
The other two grievances, with names redacted, describe heated situations in which the complainants say Goldman used imposing body language and a raised tone of voice in a way that was threatening.
The grievances, both filed on May 2, describe separate confrontations, one with a teacher and another with two students.
The teacher who said Goldman confronted her on March 13 said he was sarcastic, loud and aggressive.
“As a woman, and fairly new teacher, this interaction felt like a verbal assault; I felt unsafe and threatened,” she wrote.
The second stemmed from an April 7 incident, in which a teacher wrote two students spent lunch in the teacher’s room “talking through their feelings.”
As the teacher escorted the two students to class, Goldman and two other administrators approached, and Goldman wanted to talk. The students did not.
“At this point it became chaotic,” the teacher wrote. One student dropped a curse word, saying she didn’t want to talk. Goldman said “oh really?” while “peering over her and being physically close to her.”
Goldman said Tuesday during the meeting he was called to the second floor “immediately to help break up a fight,” though the complaint doesn’t mention one. Goldman said he told one student they needed to speak with an administrator “right now.”
He said he approached the student, who said, “‘I’m not going to f-ing talk with you,’ to which I replied, ‘oh really, I don’t think so,’ or something to that effect.”
Goldman touted his 31 years of experience, de-escalation training, peer mediation and restraint techniques.
“I trust that in potentially disruptive and potentially unsafe situations, I make the right decisions in the moment to preserve the safety of everyone in the vicinity of a potential fight.”
Before coming to PVPA in 2011, he served eight years as principal of Smith Academy in Hatfield, two years before that as president of Holyoke Community Charter School and four years before that as principal of Amherst Regional High School.
When Goldman left Amherst in 2001, teachers applauded him for his desire to mix things up. He allowed a computer teacher to start Team Tech, a program for potential dropouts. Then-Superintendent Gus Sayer said he lowered the white-black achievement gap and Goldman said he lowered the drop-out rate, started new staff evaluation procedures and “changed the way we work with at-risk students,” among other initiatives.
A March 2001 Gazette article also noted controversy while he was at the helm: a rendition of “West Side Story” was scrapped after Puerto Rican students and parents complained about stereotypes. Some parents resisted his proposal to station a police officer on campus, and he withdrew that idea.
The article also notes that students told a Gazette reporter “many of their classmates cheered in the corridors” upon hearing he was leaving.
“He has caused a level of controversy at times, but he has been willing to take risks and that has been a refreshing thing,” Thomas Gralinski, the technology teacher, said in 2001.
At PVPA, Goldman said in his Tuesday speech he cleaned up unethical student transcript record-keeping, corrected special education protocols, shephered the construction of a new theater, and provided benefits to part-time teachers, among other things.
He said any staffing changes were justified and that he ran the school “carefully, ethically and legally.”
The Personnel Advisory Board, in their statement, said Goldman “distorted” the narrative of his time there.