Voc-Tech union: “Teachers feel completely defeated”

Change is sweeping through Greater New Bedford’s Voc-Tech high school — and teachers are raising their hands to say that something’s not right. 

The school’s Educator’s Union conducted a climate survey this spring that found teachers are feeling burnt out, disrespected, and locked out of decision-making. The survey comes at a time when student demographics are beginning to shift — owing in part to recent changes in admissions policies that aim to make the school more representative of its sending area: New Bedford, Dartmouth, and Fairhaven. 

More than 80% of the union’s survey respondents either “disagreed” or “strongly disagreed” that school administrators understood the realities of their workloads; 74% disagreed or strongly disagreed that their input was valued; almost 70% disagreed or strongly disagreed that administrators respected their time. The survey received 158 responses, a 70% response rate.

“The superintendent doesn’t support the teaching staff in any meaningful way,” said Kellie Martin, who teaches legal curriculum and serves on the executive board of the educators union. “He needs to be held accountable just like we are held accountable,” Martin said.

“The teachers are saddled with a plethora of new initiatives,” said Kelly Haggerty, an English teacher and union leader. “And they don’t train us.” Haggerty also said that issues around transparency, student discipline, and distrust are making the school culture feel “worse” than ever before.

Yet the superintendent, Mike Watson, received exclusively “proficient” or “exemplary” evaluations during the June meeting of Voc-Tech’s School Committee — including an evaluation about the school’s professional culture. 

Two School Committee members said they were not familiar with the union’s survey and had not done any observations during school hours while making their evaluations.

Watson told The Light that while he accepts the feedback, he believes the school is making important and valuable changes. 

“If a significant number of employees disagree that the superintendent understands the realities of the work, that’s important feedback for me to hear,” Watson said. “Whether I agree or not with every perception is not really the point. As the superintendent, I have a responsibility to listen, reflect, and continually look for ways to improve communication and understanding.

“Educators today are being asked to do more than they’ve ever been asked to do before,” Watson said. “District leaders are asking educators to adapt to new instructional practices, new student support needs, and new expectations. Those changes can cause a lot of frustration for staff members.”

Though Watson said he takes the concerns raised in the survey seriously, he didn’t see any contradiction in receiving strong evaluation marks from the School Committee. “It’s entirely possible that a school committee would conclude that the district is making meaningful progress toward its strategic goals, while at the same time employees express concerns about workload and communication and morale and the pace of change,” he said.

Watson added, “In any period of significant organizational improvement, often both progress and discomfort are happening at the same time.”

So what’s going on at Voc-Tech?

Survey comments and interviews with current teachers surfaced several reoccurring themes: a lack of student discipline, new administrator initiatives, and an overall lack of transparency. 

“Our hallways are a free-for-all,” wrote one survey respondent. “We rarely see security, and when we do, their intervention is to tell students to ‘get to class.’”

“As a veteran educator I have never felt so completely exhausted and overwhelmed by the demands,” wrote another. “We are asked to do [our jobs] with less and less support and more and more behavior issues.”

Haggerty, the English teacher and union leader, expanded on some of these teacher comments in an interview. She described several incidents of student altercations in the hallways, or students who had been written up, yet received no consequences.

“The administrators don’t support the teachers,” Haggerty said. “Whatever the kids say, they run with that. … People feel they don’t have support or protection.” 

Haggerty said there were cases where students became confrontational with teachers, but did not receive consequences. “The teachers feel completely defeated,” she said. “The kids can — and do — say whatever they want.” 

Another topic was the amount of new “initiatives” at the school. One survey respondent wrote, “No more new subscriptions to educational platforms, we can’t keep up with it!” Another wrote, “There are far too many administrators, and each one creates more work for teachers.”

Martin, the legal studies teacher and union leader, answered further questions about these comments. “The amount of new programs implemented over the past few years is astounding, and we’re expected to carry out those programs without the support we need,” she said. 

Martin continued: “Our professional development is supposed to be meaningful and useful for our licensure, but it’s none of those things.”

The superintendent acknowledged this trend. “There are a number of new initiatives … I’m not going to sugar-coat it,” Watson said. Voc-Tech has new systems for taking attendance, creating student schedules, preparing for lessons, and assessing students, according to both Watson and teachers.

Watson said all the new initiatives are part of one unified direction for the school, outlined in its recent Strategic Plan, meant to help teachers “meet the needs of students who are coming to us with very different learning styles, very different learning abilities, but are all in the same classroom,” he said.

On the question of student discipline, Watson said, “Maintaining a safe and respectful learning and working environment remains one of the highest priorities for the school administration. No employee should be treated disrespectfully, nor should students expect that inappropriate behavior would be ignored.”

Watson said changing student demographics are the main driver of changes in the professional culture. “The expectations placed on schools have changed. And our responsibility is to continue evolving.”

Watson added, “Leadership is not about avoiding difficult conversations or decisions; it’s about listening, it’s about communicating openly, it’s about making thoughtful decisions based on the best information we have available.” 

Watson said he “will not shy away from” these difficult conversations. 

School Committee members not aware of survey results, school issues

Two Voc-Tech School Committee members who were responsible for the superintendent’s evaluation this spring responded to questions from The Light: Carol Pimentel, a New Bedford appointee to the committee who now serves as chair, and Mike Shea, the former Voc-Tech superintendent and New Bedford Public Schools interim superintendent, who retired from the School Committee in June.

As a separate school and district from New Bedford Public Schools, the Voc-Tech has its own School Committee, which also includes appointees from Fairhaven and Dartmouth. 

Pimentel, who was appointed in 2023 after resistance from New Bedford’s City Council over her support for Voc-Tech admissions reform, said she was “still learning the ropes there,” and wasn’t familiar with the union survey results. 

“What I know personally is that it’s a wonderful school and a lot of students would like to go there,” Pimentel said. She said she would “look into” what teachers are saying about the school climate. “We will discuss the situation at the next meeting,” she said. 

Shea, a longtime force at Voc-Tech, has served as a teacher, coach, athletic director, principal, superintendent, and School Committee member over the last five decades — and has just fully retired after the June committee meeting. 

Shea said he had not seen the survey results. His reflection on the climate was that “Mike Watson, the superintendent, is doing a good job.” He added, “I think that in 2026, a lot of things have changed in education. It’s not an easy job anymore.”

Shea also said that changing student demographics may be influencing the perceptions of school climate. He said that Watson has communicated well with the union, but that there may be room for improvement.

“I think the communication is good at that school. Is it perfect? Probably not,” Shea said. “Mike [Watson] will listen to you, but he won’t be swayed left or right by what you want. He’ll make the decision that’s best for the school. And he communicates to the School Committee members about what’s going on in the school.”

In the fall, Voc-Tech will see some new administrative leadership. Several key staff left at the end of the school year, including Warley Williams, the principal; Cathie Rebelo, the director of career and technical programs; and Nancy Markey, the human resources director. 

Email Colin Hogan at chogan@newbedfordlight.org

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