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As a troubled year draws to a close for Federal Hocking, its superintendent expresses confidence while staff share concerns about leadership
By: Theo Peck-Suzuki | Report for America
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB/Report for America) — For Emma Wright, the nonrenewal of Jake Amlin’s contract was just the latest in a year of troubles at Federal Hocking.
Wright is the guidance counselor at Federal Hocking High School, where Amlin is principal. By the time the board voted not to renew Amlin’s contract, Wright had already made a decision of her own: hand in her resignation and pursue a new degree.
“If this would have happened and I hadn’t put in my resignation yet, I would have at this point,” Wright said.
Wright said the problems began at the start of the school year with the arrival of the new superintendent, Jason Spencer. Since then, Wright said, individuals have been punished for breaking rules they didn’t know about, creating a climate of fear within the district. She also criticized Spencer’s approach to improving Fed Hock’s test scores, which she said involved strong rhetoric but little real engagement.
Nowhere was this clearer, Wright said, than when Spencer publicly suggested the district hadn’t looked at test scores before his arrival.
“I was like, ‘What do you mean? What?’ … Maybe he had a conversation with somebody else about test scores and stuff, but like, I’m the high school counselor. I look at all of the assessment data,” Wright said.
Spencer, who did not comment on Amlin’s removal immediately after the board meeting, now denies test scores were involved.
“I know the latest narrative is that I changed the leadership at the high school due to test scores. That cannot be further from the truth. Unfortunately, since we cannot discuss personnel matters, it gives the people the space to create their own story,” Spencer wrote in an email to WOUB.
Wright said poor communication has been another hallmark of the past year.
“I told Dr. Spencer a big part of communication is listening, and I don’t feel like that’s happening,” Wright said.
Fears of retaliation began soon after Spencer’s arrival
On Aug. 23 — the Friday before students were set to come back from summer break — tragedy struck Fed Hock. Laurie Torrence, a beloved teacher who had been in the district for decades, did not show up to work. Colleagues found her car still in the driveway. Her husband was away; he gave permission over the phone for them to force their way in. They found her body inside.
“I’m concerned about the First Day experience that students will have if the MS/HS starts on Monday.
I respect how difficult a decision like this is to make, but our staff is not okay.
Jake”
Middle school Principal Sonya White wrote an email concurring:
“Thanks, Jake. I echo Jake’s thoughts. Our people, our FH family, are not okay.
Sonya”
Spencer and the board chose to start school on Monday anyway. Torrence’s husband, Dan, who was on the school board at the time, said Laurie would not have wanted anything to change.
What happened next would cast a shadow over the rest of the school year.
Three days later, on Monday, Aug. 26, Spencer issued a signed verbal reprimand to Amlin. The reason: Amlin had CC’ed the board in his email, thereby violating the chain of command. The wording of the reprimand suggests Spencer saw Amlin’s email as an attempt to undermine his leadership.
“During the administrative retreat, we emphasized the critical role of the board’s goals in shaping our communication. One key principle we discussed is the vital chain of command. When issues arise, it is crucial that you bring them to me as your supervisor, and I will then escalate them to my supervisors on the board,” Spencer wrote.
“Regrettably, you violated this expectation and board policy when you emailed all five board members on Friday, August 23, 2024. This action, along with your attempt to gather support against a decision I made and you did not agree with, demonstrates a lack of leadership, an inability to understand appropriate communication within the chain of command, and insubordination.”
He also issued Amlin a written reprimand for publishing the 2024-2025 handbook without the board’s approval.
One teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said Amlin’s punishment immediately sent a chill throughout the district that has not abated since.
“Everyone has been very fearful of talking to anyone about anything because we all knew that Jake got written up at the beginning of the school year for including the school board on an email,” the teacher said.
One week later, Spencer issued a verbal reprimand to White for her email as well. The wording in the reprimand is virtually identical to the wording in Amlin’s.
Spencer declined to comment on Amlin’s reprimand specifically.
“Every single adult needs to be held accountable for their behavior. And so, I would say this year we’ve had a number of situations where behavior was unacceptable. It’s not professional, and I’ve had to address it. Now, I’ve talked to former superintendents who witnessed the exact same behavior, but nothing was ever done,” Spencer said.
“It just seems like there are several things that Dr. Spencer doesn’t like about Jake, and I don’t get it,” Wright said. “He’s obviously very loved by many people in our community. He has kids that go to our school. He goes to every sports event and band concert, and I mean, he’s so involved and I just don’t — I don’t get it.”
“So I as a board member then went and talked to Mr. Amlin, just me and him in a room, and decided, let’s talk about all the things that supposedly are out there,” Torrence said. “And he addressed every one of them. … It was all positive, and a lot of stuff that I had been told from the previous superintendent I didn’t feel was factual.”
WOUB submitted a public records request for communication between Hanning and the board in spring 2024 regarding Amlin. None of the documents returned mentioned anything about issues with Amlin’s professional conduct.
Torrence was not on the board when Amlin’s contract was nonrenewed. He sold his house after his wife’s death, unwittingly forfeiting his seat.
Spencer acknowledged the circumstances around Laurie Torrence’s death set the tone for the rest of the year.
“I feel like up to that point, everyone was in great spirits … We had four good days of professional development and boom, that happened, right?” Spencer said. “And I made the decision with the board’s support that we’re going to school, and it upset them, and that set off a series of events that has not stopped since.”
Amlin declined to comment for this story. At a Nov. 19 board meeting, he publicly asked the board to investigate the reprimands he received from Spencer. In response, Spencer issued another written reprimand to Amlin.
“You objected to your previous reprimand in public session rather than voicing your concerns professionally through appropriate channels such as requesting to speak to the Board in executive session,” Spencer wrote. “You further misrepresented to the public and staff in attendance what was contained in the reprimand to stir up support for yourself and to make it appear that I was prohibiting staff members from ever communicating with Board members, when in fact I had reprimanded you for insubordination and attempting to circumvent the chain of command for communication about my decision.”
The reprimand also mentions an email Amlin wrote after the meeting criticizing Spencer over a separate matter. The email is available to view here.
“The wording of the email suggested that your primary motivation was to lash out at me and the Board, not to support staff,” Spencer wrote. “If you had truly wanted to ensure that particular staff members received an acknowledgement that you believed they deserved … you could have spoken to me in advance of the meeting about the issue.”
Amlin thus ended 2024 with three reprimands from Spencer.
Tensions worsened over canceled field trips
The Nov. 19 board meeting also included a dispute between Spencer and teachers from Amesville Elementary. As Spencer described it, he denied a handful of field trips earlier that day because Amesville staff had not explained how they were relevant to the curriculum. Spencer said he was surprised to discover this was not already common practice at Fed Hock. A field trip at the middle school, intended as a reward for good behavior, was also denied around this time.
A number of teachers expressed their frustration at the meeting.
“Teachers came out and just attacked me,” Spencer said, expressing disappointment they did not even ask why he denied the field trips in the first place.
There is no recording of exactly what the teachers said, but their words had a strong impact on Spencer. The following day, he emailed board president Sheridan-Boyd asking for a separation agreement.
“FH is a hostile work environment. It’s a place where people have high standards for others, however, do not hold themselves to the same standards. It’s not a place where people come together to solve problems. It’s a place where they show up with pitchforks if they disagree with your decision even when they failed to follow proper procedures,” Spencer wrote.
“In the end, i’m sad for the students. They deserve better role models,” Spencer wrote.
The separation agreement never came to pass, but Spencer’s comment about “role models” did leak to staff.
“That really kind of hurt and offended me,” the unnamed teacher said. “It seems to me like his messaging to the school board has been that it’s a teacher issue — you know, ‘They’re just used to doing whatever they want, and they don’t like this increased accountability.’”
Changing the culture at Fed Hock has been a priority of Spencer’s since his arrival.
“When you go into an organization or a school and you’re trying to improve the culture, and you identify some things that you believe are a detriment to that culture, you have to take steps to eradicate it. You have to. If you don’t, you’re looking back in three to four years and you got the same results with the same behaviors with the same outcomes. And as a leader, that’s not the legacy I wanna leave,” he said.
However, some staff still don’t know what that is.
“If the procedure for submitting field trip requests ever changed, it was not communicated to us,” the unnamed teacher said.
Wright also said she hadn’t received any insight into the new field trip protocol. The sudden and unannounced change in expectations deepened her sense of unease.
“I feel like I’m walking on eggshells all the time and that I am going to do something wrong and get in trouble for it,” Wright said. “I have had many conversations with my coworkers and several of them feel the same way.”
Spencer said those concerns are overblown.
“My message has always been, ‘You’re welcome to talk to everyone, whoever, whoever you’d like.’ So they had questions, like they felt like they couldn’t come talk to me, and I addressed — I said, ‘Here, I’ll talk to anybody. Anybody who knows me and works with me knows that I’ll talk to anybody,’” he said.
The unnamed teacher disagreed.
“We have been explicitly told we are not allowed to interact with Dr. Spencer directly or the board directly unless we have gone through our principal first,” the teacher said.
Spencer uses strong rhetoric on test scores, but staff don’t see action
Spencer said improving Fed Hock’s test scores is a key priority for him. That’s another reason he wants the culture in the district to change.
“I set a goal this year with everyone on opening day, and I said our goal is to eliminate ‘limited,’” Spencer said.
“Limited” is the lowest a child can score on an assessment, followed by “basic,” “proficient,” “accelerated” and “advanced.” Spencer said Fed Hock has a disproportionate number of students who test into “limited.”
The unnamed teacher confirmed that principals are talking more about raising test scores but said the rhetoric has not been matched with action.
“We as the staff kept asking, ‘Okay, how?’ I would love for my test scores to go up. … But how?” the teacher said.
Spencer said the district has been training its staff on how to improve test scores.
“We have site-based meetings. We have PLCs (professional learning communities) that go on. We have professional development, just like days in which we do some trainings and things. So they work together in groups, they work together in teams to analyze this information. What does it show us? What does it tell us? What plans can we put together to make sure that we’re meeting the needs?” Spencer said.
But Wright said she has not received any professional development on how to improve test scores since Spencer arrived.
“We didn’t get any professional development throughout the school year about data, about testing. Like, we have professional development days and that type of PD was not given to us,” Wright said.
The unnamed teacher also denied receiving professional development about test scores. The teacher added that Fed Hock does not have PLCs — though it does have TBTs, or teacher based teams, which serve a similar function.
When asked why staff say they have not received professional development on improving test scores, Spencer said they bear some responsibility themselves.
“They need to make sure that they’re sharing their concerns with their administrator and then we work together on a plan to bring them the professional development,” Spencer said.
He also said he has offered to provide training on MAP testing himself. MAP tests are computer tests that adjust their difficulty based on how the student is performing.
“I’ve offered that many, many times,” Spencer said. “I’ve yet to be taken up on it. So if they’re asking — now, there has to be some follow through. So the principals have to help work with the teachers and put together a plan for PD.”
He added, “We will provide whatever the teachers need. I’m a big believer in making sure that they have all the resources they need, all the training that they need.”
“My goal is always to help them (the principals) become instructional leaders. That’s what I want,” Spencer said.
The principals are then expected to share that expertise directly with their teachers.
“I believe principals should be routinely in classrooms, daily. Whether that’s to give feedback or just to observe what’s going on or interact with kids and interact with staff, they should be visible. They should be in classrooms. They should know what’s going on in those classrooms and making sure that our students are successful,” Spencer said.
Wright confirmed that Amlin has been putting many more classroom visits on his schedule this year, but she was not sure what impact those visits were having.
The unnamed teacher said their class had received a handful of visits from a principal, but the feedback was very limited and did not lead to any productive changes.
The teacher said they have independently researched and implemented ways to improve test scores, but said none of that came from Spencer or other administrators. The teacher expressed concern Spencer would get credit if test scores in that class improved.
Wright said part of the problem is that Fed Hock has not been replacing staff who leave in an effort to stave off a budget deficit.
“We’re constantly expected to do more with less,” Wright said. “So like, we’re being told that test scores are bad, this is our fault — like, that’s the message I feel like I’m getting. But we’re not being given support to change that.”
Spencer is confident his efforts will soon bear fruit.
“I’ve seen this happen over and over and over everywhere I’ve been. There’s always pushback. There’s always anxiousness. But as soon as the results start to come in, then people go, ‘Oh, it did work,’” he said.
The board appears to be behind him, despite some controversy around his previous employment and his behavior on social media, as reported by the Athens Independent. Spencer said some of his press coverage has overrepresented a small number of critical voices in the district and insisted the vast majority of residents want him to stay the course.
But Wright said the mood in the district is not good, especially after Amlin’s nonrenewal.
“Teachers are upset. Students are upset,” Wright said. “It’s disheartening.”