'No Confidence' Vote In Swampscott Director Of Teaching And Learning

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — The Swampscott Education Association publicly announced a "no confidence" vote in District Director of Teacher and Learning Dr. Jean Bacon after the union said repeated attempts to provide input and feedback to the administration on a collaborative approach to creating "a safe and welcoming environment for all of our students so that they are able to thrive while receiving a quality education" were disregarded.

The union posted reasons behind the "no confidence" vote as part of an open letter on its Facebook page and said it took the step only after attempts to address those concerns with Superintendent Pamela Angelakis and the School Committee at its March 23 meeting were thwarted when no public comment was taken that night.

"This was not a decision approached lightly, nor without tremendous consideration," the union said.

The School Committee on Thursday spent much of that meeting discussing and voting on the Fiscal Year 2024 budget.

"It's essential we have a leader that can create a shared and thoughtful vision for our students and an empowered learning environment for our staff," the SEA said. "Though we have tried, we cannot attain this with our current Director of Teaching and Learning.

"Our students and staff deserve more."

Patch reached out to Dr. Bacon for comment at her district email address on Wednesday morning and she referred questions to the superintendent's office. This story will be updated with any comment provided when it is available.

The union said that in the three years under Bacon "the already challenging work of educating our students has become more difficult" and cited a lack of support and lack of trust as reasons for what it said was a 95 percent membership vote in favor of "no confidence."

"Micromanagement at every level has made all aspects of our job more difficult," the union said. "This mismanagement, combined with a deaf ear to our repeated and cohesive recommendations, has resulted in an extremely negative and frustrating environment.

"Our goal is and always has been to build a higher-functioning professional teacher community. Unfortunately, under Dr. Bacon's leadership, this goal has become untenable. Our repeated efforts as a group and individually to provide input and feedback have been consistently ignored."

The SEA accused Bacon of violating the collective bargaining agreement by using her power to pressure staffers "to agree to something they typically would not under other circumstances" and said this disconnect has led to staff departures from the district.

The School Committee's next public meeting is scheduled for April 13.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)