The Barrington School Committee fired five teachers during Thursday night’s meeting.

But the process of issuing “notices of non-renewal” did not allow the public to know many of the teachers who were terminated. 

In fact, only one of the educators who got fired spoke during the meeting — Barrington Middle School teacher James Sullivan. The eighth grade math teacher spoke during the online school committee meeting, stating that he had only been with the district for a little over a month and believed that part of their employment agreement was that he would be helped along with the teacher certification process. It appears that Mr. Sullivan did not have his Rhode Island teaching certification, although he did say that he had a Massachusetts certification. 

Mr. Sullivan said he was not sure what Barrington Superintendent of Schools Michael Messore meant when he said he was not qualified. He may have been referring to part of the termination process where the superintendent said he was recommending issuing a non-renewal notice to Mr. Sullivan and that he was confident he could find a more qualified candidate for the position. That same language was shared for most of the probationary teachers who were fired. 

Mr. Sullivan said he was concerned when he received a letter about the termination earlier this week. He said he had never heard of a teacher being fired after such a short period of time “and for no apparent reason.”

District attorney Sara Rapport encouraged Mr. Sullivan to work with the teachers union for any followup concerns or advice.

The school committee then voted 5-0 to issue the non-renewal notice.

That marked the first of five consecutive votes to terminate teachers, although the four that followed did not disclose which teacher was fired. 

The school committee voted to terminate three probationary teachers: a special education teacher at Barrington High School, a special education reading specialist at Barrington Middle School, and a special education teacher at one of the K-3 elementary schools. The committee then voted to fire a tenured teacher “for cause.” The vote did not share any details (school or specialization) about the tenured teacher.

At least one of the probationary teachers fired was one of the three Barrington teachers who was had been previously terminated because she did not follow the school committee’s vaccine mandate. 

It is not clear why the school committee decided to issue a notice of non-renewal to the already-fired teacher, although it could serve as a final step to remove the outside chance that the teacher could return to work in the district if a court was to disallow the school committee’s earlier decision to terminate the three teachers for not adhering to the vaccine mandate.