Congratulations to the 46 MHS students who were inducted into the National Honor Society on September 17th, 2013.
You were selected based upon your merits and have truly earned the honor. You all had the GPA, the leadership positions and the volunteer hours.
Why the post about a September NHS induction? What does it mean the "original" 46 inductees? Are the ones in the paper new ones?
The names of the 46 inductees in the paper are the original "first wave". A bunch of parents and students who did not get in screamed loudly and the administration caved. The originals had to miss classes today to attend a second ceremony. Kind of takes away from the honor. The MHS administration intentionally downplayed the accomplishment of the originals, they did not even post a picture on the website. There are plenty of pics usually of the usuals of course because apparently there are only 30 students at MHS worthy of participating in any special way.
Wait a second - you either qualify or you don't. Did they needed to artificially inflate the numbers because it looks better?
If I'm one of the first 46, I'm a little peeved right now. What the heck is going on in that building?
Sounds like some parents were upset, they protested and the administration let them in. How many got in from the protests? Give everyone a medal.
2nd year in a row they caved and reopened the process. Of course the faculty they had doing this were the definition of unprofessional, so some of the reasons to reopen were no doubt valid. But this is not appropriately professional administration of anything. The students who rightly earned the honor are devalued as are those who were so discouraged by the incompetent and political process that they didn't even bother to apply even though they were qualified.
Some of it was a reaction to the regressive policies, if you can even call them that, of Dan Richards, who stood in the way of the traditional pathways to this Nat. H Society designation with harshly restrictive measures and poor choices of staff to administer the whole thing. He was all and only about promoting the PR strategies of the mayor, never about the kids or the teachers. When it was discovered that many qualified kids had been shut out for bad reasons or no reasons, the process was reopened last year. Now it's about unprofessional staff making it a popularity contest, right down to inappropriate teacher twitter feeds. But then again you have parents of kids who couldn't manage even the pathetic minimum of 40 hours of community service, let alone meet the academic or behavior standards, fighting for their brats to gain entrance. Like everything else now, it's about rank unprofessionalism defining it all and spoiling it for the hard-working kids who deserve better.
Skipping class to attend a 2nd induction ceremony? Are you kidding? How many stupid messages does that send? What, academics not important at MHS, especially if you're a National Honor Society inductee? WTF? Based on the lousy scores of the school these days, maybe the students are better off not attending class, but really?
My, my. What a highly co-incidental posting string!
Parent
Dec 16, 2013 - 3:59PM
why?
Dec 16, 2013 - 4:46PM
Parent
Dec 16, 2013 - 5:16PM
What?
Dec 16, 2013 - 5:30PM
kudos
Dec 16, 2013 - 5:39PM
high school
Dec 16, 2013 - 6:10PM
Nat H Soc
Dec 16, 2013 - 6:17PM
What???
Dec 16, 2013 - 6:18PM
Just imagine all these folks sitting around on the MM site, waiting for a posting like this so they could all jump in at once, literally one right after another.
3:56, 4:46, 5:16, 5:30, 5:39, 6:10, 6:17, 6:18...
That's astounding!
NICE WORK there, Myron!
You've out done yourself!
LOL!!!!
Well, maybe attention could be devoted to the more serious matters if only the teacher weren't exposing massive amounts of her cleavage and tatts, or maybe if she'd just once speak like an educated teacher instead of like a pole dancer or motorcycle mama.... Professional conduct, attire, comportment, not so much!
No, absolutely not Myron. And there are more of us than you'd like to think, Mikey! Go back to trolling for your boss.
Will you folks please stop attributing postings to me! This is beginning to get ridiculous.....accept the fact that others in the community may think likewise.
This site is just a haven private school parents to try to make themselves feel better about paying $$ for a lousy high schools. You should all stay close to your fellow private school parents because nobody else in this city likes you. While you all must be glad to have this site available to bash MHS, we are all happy it is here to let you know that we don't like you and hope you feel unwelcome in this city. Oh, and then there is Myron also.
It appears it's you who ought to put the pipe down.
Congrats to all 46 students from MHS. I would also like to congratulate the young man who attends Belmont Hill and was just accepted to Harvard on an early admittance. Way to go young men and women.
Congrats to the young Melrose man from MC who just got Early admittance to Harvard, also
A well deserved admission. Congratulations
Congrats to the MHS Student Athlete who just got early acceptance into Wesleyan. Unfortunately for Wesleyan they will have to wait while he weighs his other offers/options, including the IVY League.
Can we knock it off with the ridiculous congratulations of students college acceptances. If you know the kid,
congratulate him in private. Or is it that your just flying your flag in the public vs. private school debate?
Congratulations were obviously started by private school parent trying to justify the 5 figure tuition. One things for sure, it wasn't there kid getting into Harvard.
As far as the BS with the National Honor Society a few points need to be made on the second round of students admitted:
1) The joke of a professional/advisor that screwed this thing each of the last two years will not be part of the organization moving forward.
2) She discriminately admitted students based on her personal feelings towards them and admitted some students with lesser credentials than those she denied.
3) Because of this potential abuse of the process by student advisors the NHS provides the students to opportunity to appeal to the HS Principal.
4) After a full review by the HS administration the students that were admitted qualified on every standard established by the Melrose NHS guidelines including GPA, Service Hours and recommendations. The Advisor was dismissed.
These kids were screwed first time around by a ding bat who had no business leading this organization in the first place. The standards are pretty straight forward. 3.5 GPA, 24 hours community service and solid recommendations. Each student admitted on appeal met those benchmarks first time around...as did the original kids admitted. what's unfortunate is the administration, in typical fashion, put an incompetent person in charge in the first place, and then had to clean up the mess.
"This is quite accurate....but it never should have come to this. The advisor in charge was incompetent, and that should have been addressed by the principal. The principal needs to recognize that the "buck stops here", and start proactively building a strong team of educators to work at MHS. The administration is always reactive, waiting for disasters to happen and for complaints to reach a critical mass before taking action. If they would just hire competent, professional staff, the school would run itself."
Absolutely correct. The pervasive lack of professionalism, starting with the school committee (and some of the aldermen/women) and working down through administration and teaching staff, is at the core of the problem, paired with a public that is codependent in its need/demand for sunshine and butterflies instead of the truth. How does anyone think that children will learn to be independent, thinking, responsible adults when the parents are not willing to be mature, responsible, thinking adults themselves but instead comfortable with half-truths, political game-playing hypocrisy?
The district will always be in catch-up mode as long as the real issues are only acknowledged in past tense (and not even fully at that). How many of those supposedly intelligent people now willing to acknowledge the failures of the Casey regime were willing to do so then? How many of those who were outraged when Dan Richards suddenly announced his acceptance of the Belmont job were total sycophants right up until that moment, even when there was plenty of troubling evidence right from the start that this was not a good hire? How many are still socializing with and sucking up to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and fooling themselves into thinking they are being good and responsible parents doing the best for their kids/family by perpetually making excuses for one who is in fact the Oz behind so much of what has gone wrong, is vicious, and will do anything to further himself at everyone else's expense?
"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named", our very own "education expert" made one of his biggest errors by getting himself onto the SC. Had he not done that, he could now attempt to portray himself as our knight in shining armor, who rides to the rescue like Mighty Mouse and saves the day. Instead, he has in no uncertain terms confirmed that he is actually part of - the biggest part of - the problem. This entire disaster has happened on his watch, and he needs to be held accountable. The buck ultimately stops with him, and because he is basically a coward who hasn't the courage to own it, more effort gets spent on pretending everything is good than gets spent on actually fixing it.
What a shame. He's done some good things, but in his shameless power grab, he's succeeded only in turning a fairly decent school system into a laughingstock. Unfortunately, the joke is on us.
Huh?
Students inducted must also have demonstrated leadership positions, be involved in their school and community and most importantly have a clean record. The fact is that the administration caved because of the bad press.
Perhaps there were a couple of kids who were rejected unfairly initially. There are many other deserving students who did not bother to appeal. They accepted the rejection with grace and moved on.
One kid was rejected (after being accepted) because his parents couldn't reschedule a medical appointment and he'd have to miss the ceremony. That is just not right. That was a medically necessary miss, and it shouldn't have affected anything. The teacher running things and now forced to step down was immature and unprofessional, and she turned it into a popularity contest where she made up the rules as she went. She's been out of control for a long time, but neither Taymore or Farrell made sure she couldn't hurt kids. She hurt kids and pitted them against each other. She hurt the culture of the school and sums up the unprofessionalism that passes for acceptable at MHS. Taymore and apparently now Farrell only pretend to care about kids, and that is borne out in lots of other areas far more important than this silliness with National Honor Society.
Oh, ok
Rest assured parent of student who had the medical appointment that parents and students were horrified by the actions of the advisor in question. Your student was a deserving individual who should have never been subjected to the cruelty of the person in power.
If your student had been in the inner circle and we know who they are because their mugs are everywhere an exception would have been made.
That "Digrace" of a teacher turned the Nat Hon Society process into a mockery. But worse, the administration doesn't seem to care or see that the Mean Girl mentality is now what rules all, not just in MHS but in the district, from top brass down through principals, guidance, Nat Honor Society, sports, even MHS band, and infiltrating into the PTO. It is lousy. And kids here now think this is what passes for "normal," so they don't think there's any point to expect anything better.
Well, what do you expect? Half the town is working in the school system in some capacity; teachers, paras, coaches, administrators, etc. If people were being hired based on ability, you wouldn't have the majority of staff, quite coincidentally, being from Melrose. The bar has been set pretty low, which is why we have the problems we do. There have been problems with the NHS for years, by the way, this was not news. So the staff member who was in charge of NHS is no longer in charge of it? So what? She is still a staff member. I am sure she brings the same unfairness, incompetence, and lack of integrity to her classroom.
Can they even find someone remotely competent who wants to be the student advisor for NHS? This is what happens when you hire young teachers who don't really like teaching, or the students, and look at the job as a means to a lifestyle they wanted. Afternoons and summers off!
Unless there is a serious intervention with the hiring, the future of MHS does not look bright. The excellent teachers my older kids had will retire, and there are not enough skilled, professional teachers coming up who can replace them.
That may all be true, but if you were a competent, caring professional, would you want to come to work in his system? No, I think not. The only way - repeat, the ONLY way that situation is ever going to change is to completely replace the entire leadership, from the Mayor on down. Only then can we begin to rebuild what was once a very good system to it's former quality. Anything less is just futile.
Band director who is so unprofessional he openly refers to MHS as a "craphole"! He may be correct, unfortunately, but it's because people like him make it that way, not because the kids deserve this or all of the teachers represent this lack of professionalism. But the administration keeps this kind of teacher around and couldn't care less.
Just curious...why doesn't the superintendent create a parent questionnaire for each school, and distribute it every year in the spring to get feedback on how satisfied families are with the quality of their children's education? Wouldn't that make sense? She wouldn't have to publish the results, just use the feedback to get a better sense of which principals, admins, and staff are doing well, and which aren't. If she started to see a pattern of complaints regarding specific schools, principals, or teachers, she could focus her attention more closely on those schools/situations and perhaps intervene BEFORE the sh*t hits the fan.
I am sure that if the parents were actually asked for feedback, it would be crystal clear who and where the problems lie in the district....the same names would come up over and over. The problem is, everyone seems to be working without any supervision, and the administrators all feign ignorance once the problems get too big to ignore.
At the high school, why not ask the students to evaluate their experience every year? The kids have a very good handle on who the good teachers and staff are, and they are quick to tell you, if you ask. You'll find out pretty quickly which teachers don't show up for their after school help sessions, which coaches use profanity and swear at them, which staff member "just don't care".
It seems like a no-brainer, and if the district was really interested in improving, they would welcome feedback from families.
Great suggestion. I believe that Mrs. K on the SC has suggested this quite a few times. It doesn't seem like they really want to know what the community has to say otherwise this would have been done a long time ago. They're supposed to be doing exit interviews, too, for the families that leave, and there again, I doubt they've done them. They'd rather lose the families than learn why they are leaving. Looking at the hateful things that so many people on this board say about families that make other choices, it's in synch with that same terrible mentality that the officials would rather look the other way just like the posters here yell, "Move" when anyone says things they don't want acknowledged. It's pretty sick, actually. Don't we try to teach our kids that problems don't have to get bigger if you talk about them honestly? What's wrong with these people who are so determined to keep the bad things from surfacing? They only mount up and get to be bigger problems with that attitude. Maybe they don't think it's politically correct to let the problems have the cleansing of sunlight, because that might mean some bad exposure about their decision-making, but so be it. They'd be stronger and get more traction with the public if they were willing to be honest and face things instead of hiding or lying about the problems. It's just short-sighted to choose burying heads in the sand because in the long run even an apathetic public is aware of the truth, so selective honesty only leads to decreased credibility and hostility--and the problems getting bigger!
I think I am on safe ground that parents are on this board and congratulating their own children on getting into Harvard, on a message board. Go look at yourself in the mirror, the person looking back at you is pathetic.
Since many of you clearly do not understand how the selection process for the National Honor Society at Melrose High School works, the "incompetent teacher who shows massive amounts of tattoos and speaks like a motorcycle mama" actually had nothing to do with who was selected and who was not, therefore, it was impossible for her to play favorites. Each year there is a different selection committee consisting of various MHS teachers who review and rank the applications. After looking at the applications which include a section on each of the following: character, leadership, service, and scholarship, those nonaffiliated teachers decide who is worthy enough of being called a National Honor Society member.
As a former NHS member and a graduate of Melrose High School, this advisor who was driven out by countless parents changed the way the National Honor Society at MHS was run for the better and it is a shame that she was forced to step down because the current members are missing out on a great opportunity. She made sure all of us became highly involved in the school system and the community and in my opinion, as well as other former members' opinions, she created one of the most, if not the most, successful group of NHS members Melrose has ever seen.
Maybe you should educate yourselves on the situation before you act. Just because someone's child was not selected does not mean it is the advisor's fault- maybe the child is not as qualified as the parents think. What will these parents do, make a scene and contact the colleges that deny their children? You targeted the wrong person.
P.S.- she was always dressed appropriately and is one of the best dressed teachers at MHS. Also, attire and tattoos do not make a person incompetent.
You are so right on about this.
Baloney.
Sounds like the suck-up students/former students and guard dogs of the administration once again have surfaced.
This teacher was notorious for immature and unprofessional conduct. The plunging necklines were only the tip of the iceberg, as it were. She can tattoo and pierce all she wants but that was never the issue, although the issue of professional attire certainly is something that can be expected and should be required. Students are not allowed to wear revealing, distracting clothing, and neither should professional teaching staff be allowed to do this (though in both cases administration has dropped the ball and failed to uphold reasonable standards). Beyond that, the words that come out of that teacher's mouth or tweets apparently have no filter. Whatever good she achieved was counter-balanced by a tarnished image of the whole process and the MHS branch of the organization itself. Having to reopen the process two years in a row says it all.
Requiring actual service from NHS students is a great thing, as is requiring a standard of conduct and academic achievement record. The principal has been on that staff for many years and knows that NHS has had a fine history over the years, where teachers like Mrs. S ran a tight ship and there was no funny business allowed whatsoever. It was a demanding process; it could have been improved with some of the awkward and time-consuming questionnaires, but it was certainly rigorous and fair.
The issue comes when parental pressure meant that rules were bent for those who were on record for sanctions due to violating the discipline code and were marginal as far as academics. The other issue is that worthy students were denied due to out-and-out popularity contests, unclear rules, poor communication of dates and expectations.
All in all, the management of this is a microcosm of many unprofessional things happening in the district, not just MHS, and reflects on atrociously poor leadership. And once again, the district will be doing damage control for a long time for something that should have been totally preventable. NHS was never previously on the radar as a hot spot of unprofessionalism, but it is a perfect example of administrative dysfunction that has caused blowback that now hurts kids once again. The students deserve better than this.
The principal should have demonstrated better judgment and recruited better faculty leadership from the start, and certainly should have interceded after the first round of trouble in the NHS process happened last year. To have passively allowed it to happen again is inexcusable and reflects directly on her, just as the poor management of such things as the Senior Skip Day reflects on her, the superintendent (and the school committee). Apparently standards--professional or academic--just don't matter anymore in Melrose.
"she was always dressed appropriately and is one of the best dressed teachers at MHS"....
Sounds like an infatuated young student or someone immersed in the popularity contest atmosphere that has defined NHS the last two years.
Once again we go after the good ones, why not go after the people who deserve it.
hey right on you need to get a life, if your kid didn't make it to bad stop talking about other people loser.
The criticism of the advisor is well deserved, as is criticism of the High School principal for not putting a competent person in charge of the NHS. The kids who were admitted on appeal should have been admitted first time around. Advisor engaged in open campaigns among the selection committee to either admit or deny students with identical applications...she then went around trying to torpedo kids who appealed and had the nerve to brag among the other teachers that she would resign if any of "her" initial decisions were reversed. She is a complete joke and was terminated in this position because she was incompetent and played favorites among students. For all her defenders, answer two questions. First, what specific subjects does this individual actually teach...and once you answer that one, do you think a person should be in charge of an organization of students, including judging and choosing them, that she isn't even qualified to teach? If you aren't qualified to teach honors or AP courses (or in this case even College Prep Courses) you shouldn't be judging students who take them.
A few things:
1. This is not a suck-up former student, this is a former student who believes this teacher deserves credit for the things she accomplished and does not deserve backlash for the application process because she has nothing to do with it.
2. She wasn't involved with the application process and the NHS issues two years ago. That was a completely different pair of advisors who left before the start of the last school year. The advisor under attack by all of you was actually the one who thought the process should be opened up again- don't criticize her for something she wasn't even a part of at the time. She actually fixed the entire organization.
3. If you're all concerned about favoritism in the organization and in the high school- don't enroll your children in school. All teachers have favorites and all teachers have students they don't care for very much. If the biggest concern about the NHS application process is favoritism and teachers wanting certain kids in the organization, talk to the panel of teachers who selected the members instead of criticizing the organization behind the comfort of your computer. They were probably the ones playing favorites, not the advisors.
4. Regarding her tweets, all of them are completely appropriate. The last time I checked, most of the high school teachers, including the older ones and the principal, have Twitter accounts now. She uses it to relay school related information to her students including important senior class information (she is the class advisor), college, financial aid, and scholarship information- none of which is inappropriate. I'm not sure how people define inappropriate these days but it is definitely not her tweets. You say she has no filter when speaking but I think what you actually mean is that she tells people what she's thinking...what's wrong with that? Wouldn't you rather have a teacher tell your child the truth rather than lie to them and talk behind their back?
5. It was impossible for me to be caught up in what you all think is a popularity contest because I was admitted before she was even an advisor. She had nothing to do with the application process for my graduating class as she became the advisor months after the selection committee made their decisions. Don't associate her with the former advisors' problems.
6. It is true that this teacher teaches neither AP nor honors classes. However, she has a much more difficult time because she has to teach special needs students. As mentioned before, she is not judging or choosing the students in NHS, she is simply the advisor and makes sure the members are doing what they are supposed to do and following the rules of the organization. The level of classes she teaches should not even be brought up in this conversation. She probably has one of the hardest jobs in the entire school- much harder than an AP/honors teacher giving his or her students an essay to write for an entire period. She is probably much more qualified and educated than any of you will ever be.
These angry parents should be happy because I bet their kids would not have even met the NHS requirements of the previous year. Last year's NHS thought it would be more fair for future applicants if the requirements were lowered. Before this year, a 4.0 GPA was required along with 40 hours of community service per year. Be grateful that she lowered the guidelines so your children were eligible. This whole issue completely down graded the caliber of NHS so it basically means nothing and isn't even an accomplishment anymore. It used to be selective, now parents just complain because for once their kid wasn't good enough. Accept the rejection and move on. Not everyone deserves a spot in NHS (even if their parents think they do).
Her criticism is not well deserved and your argument about her being a special ed teacher is completely invalid.