05/28/2024
Dear GPA Community Partners and Families,
We are deeply thankful for your partnership and support of the vision and mission of Gardner Pilot Academy. Together we did incredible work and made a tremendous impact on the lives of students and families. Sadly, BPS has not been honest during the investigation at GPA and their actions have dismantled our school community that took decades to develop.
It is hard to fully comprehend all that has happened over the last six months. One day we were actively working towards our goals with positive praise from the district and then suddenly after speaking out about the dysfunction of the grade reconfiguration process, BPS went on a fishing expedition to find fault in our performance. The workplace abuse was reported to the Office of Equity, but instead of taking the concern seriously, the following day Erica received urgent calls to report to the central office. She was placed on immediate paid administrative leave, where she remains today. The details of what happened at GPA have been captured in a comprehensive report that was submitted to the superintendent along with over a thousand documents that tell the true story. This report is public record and will be exposed over time as we fight for justice and accountability.
We are extremely proud of the work we did together at GPA to develop an autonomous community HUB School committed to racial equity, gender diversity, restorative practices, family and community partnerships, innovation, and excellence. We won School on the Move in 2022, received the Seal of Excellence from the Human Rights Campaign, our accountability ratings showed we were making progress academically, and our supervisors gave us positive praise for our performance during our district review this fall, as we received exemplary ratings for the last three years.
What happened to our students and families at GPA should not be acceptable to anyone, but particularly to those who are in power and remained silent, letting this happen. Many brilliant and empowered families saw through the lies and challenged the Boston Public Schools playbook, fighting for honesty and transparency to protect their school, but sadly, their pleas for support were ignored.
While the betrayal and pain from this year hurts deeply, what hurts most is the fact that what we dedicated our professional lives to developing at GPA is coming to a crashing end, with the dismantling of the community HUB school model and erosion of the autonomies afforded to pilot schools in BPS. What we developed over three decades centering on students and families is now a school without a heart. Our principal and the five HUB team members who made our model thrive have either resigned or have been pushed out from GPA. BPS hijacked our governing board, silencing our partners and families. They bypassed the entire principal hiring process, placing a teacher with no formal training or degree in educational leadership in the role. The restorative approaches to misconduct and partnerships with families have been abandoned. Programs like Catie's Closet, our food pantry, along with our robust adult ESOL program, and after school and summer program have all been significantly compromised due to the loss of the people and knowledge to fund and run these programs. A district that just publicly stated they are investing in HUB Schools has destroyed their longest standing model of excellence. Sadly, the real victims in all of this are our children and families of GPA.
GPA scholars are extremely intelligent, hard-working, social justice warriors who strive every day to change our world for the better. We will miss our GPA family deeply. It makes us so sad to not be there as our 8th grade scholars walk across the stage at promotion, and at our Friendship Feast, where we always looked forward to seeing our former graduates and hearing their life successes and offering support as we learned of life's challenges.
We cannot fix the harm and destruction BPS created at GPA. We will be using our voices to continue advocating for students and families and we will write about our experiences this year in the hopes of educating others about workplace bullying and mobbing. We are actively supporting the Workplace Psychological Safety Act that was recently passed in the Senate in Massachusetts.
We have been deeply honored to serve the kids and families of GPA and to work alongside some of the most dedicated and talented leaders. We are forever grateful to our families at GPA, the social justice leaders within GPA who found their voices to speak, and our many mentors, community partners, and friends who stood by our sides during the most traumatic experience of our professional careers.
Please join us in celebrating the amazing journey we had together and the leaders who made it happen with our Final High Five Golden Hand Presentation. This presentation is dedicated to our brilliant scholars, our incredible families, and our many partners and friends who helped make our dream a reality.
If you would like to connect our personal emails are: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]
In partnership,
Erica Herman, Joe Sara, Nicolasa Lopez, Lauren Lafferty, and Nereida Tejeda
https://workplacepsychologicalsafetyact.org/the-bill/
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1swLYQREfs73hUHeYfb6m9PkOO_HNk7J1?usp=drive_link
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