Local News

Minuteman Tech superintendent placed on leave following walkout, vote of no confidence

Tensions flared at the Lexington-based technical high school after Superintendent Kathleen Dawson chose not to extend the contract of Principal George Clement.

May 15, 2023

3 minutes to read

The superintendent of Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical High School in Lexington was placed on administrative leave late last week. The Minuteman School Committee voted to place Kathleen Dawson on leave in the wake of uproar regarding the ouster of the school’s principal and a rash of other complaints.

Dr. Kathleen Dawson, Superintendent-Director of the Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical School District

News of the School Committee’s decision was shared in an email to Minuteman families on May 12. The email was reposted as an attachment to an online petition that was started to call for Dawson’s removal.

She was placed on leave “pending an investigation into complaints received by the School Committee,” Chair Pamela Nourse wrote. “The School Committee has retained independent legal counsel to conduct an investigation into these allegations. We are committed to ensuring that all parties involved receive a fair, thorough, and unbiased examination of the facts.”

The Committee met and voted last Thursday to place Dawson on leave. An acting superintendent-director will be named soon.

“I look forward to working with the investigator assigned, as I have always put the interests of students first and I have not intentionally engaged in any misconduct,” Dawson said in a statement to The Boston Globe.

She told the Globe that the Committee received “complaints about my interactions with students and staff and concerns about working conditions from the Teachers Union.”

Dawson was chosen for the position last spring. She previously worked as Deputy Superintendent of the Orange County School District in North Carolina, and replaced longtime superintendent Ed Bouquillon. At the time, Minuteman officials said Dawson had the experience and passion for the job.

But a year later, the relationship between Dawson and the wider Minuteman community has soured. President of the Minuteman Faculty Association Diane Dempsey told the Globe that all 90 members of the organization cast a vote of no confidence in Dawson on May 1. This was reportedly the first time such a vote had occurred in the district.

At the center of the vitriol against Dawson is her decision not to extend the contract of Principal George Clement. That decision was made in late April, according to a letter from the Minuteman Parent Association.

In an email from May 5 to the School Committee, Clement shared his thoughts on the matter. Clement’s email was also posted as a link from the online petition.

“[Dawson] showed herself [to be] a cold and deceptive reprobate, and that is the energy now radiating from the top of the school,” Clement wrote. “The great teachers and kids at Minuteman are subjected to an insincere, inexperienced, ineffective manager with a broken moral compass and they deserve better.”

Clement accused Dawson of problematic behavior, and said he investigated complaints against her. Dawson, Clement wrote, made “staff and students feel uncomfortable by rubbing their shoulders or back,” attended a student-therapist session without an invitation, and called administrators on their vacation to demand work from them while also telling them that their contracts were null and void.

Dawson told the Globe that these physical gestures were “natural” and that “nothing more was intended.”

“These days, this is a charge loaded with negative implications but facts, not implication or rumor and gossip, matter. I have never touched a student or staff member in a manner that was intended to be or could be construed to be of a sexual nature,” Dawson told the paper. “I look forward to clearing my name of the innuendo and rumors motivated by adult concerns.”

One online petition entitled “Save Mr. Clement” has garnered more than 1,500 signatures so far, while another calling for Dawson’s removal has more than 680 signatures.

On May 8, more than 200 Minuteman students staged a walkout in support of Clement. Community access channel LexMedia documented the event. An Instagram page run by members of the senior class has also been sharing periodic updates.