Did you see or hear the discussion concerning the results of the most recent teacher evaluations in our school district by school superintendent Taymore at last Tuesday's school committee meeting? She agreed that our best performing teachers should be rewarded (financially) and brought that up to union leaders but nothing has come out of these discussions. This after she had just previously praised the union for their help in other school matters.
Taymore has been a teacher and school administrator for over 35 years and yet she seems so naive and ignorant when dealing with union leaders. She praises them when they help her negotiate teacher pay raises of 25% over 3 years during the last union contract and expects them to help reward our best performing teachers! When was the last time the teacher's union cared enough about rewarding our best teachers? Here is a guess, NOT ONCE! The union is self-serving, only interested in maintaining their existence, union dues, and union leadership positions within all schools, and are only interested in protecting incompetent and poor performing teachers. When was the last time you heard of the union protecting a competent and qualified teacher? In the eyes of the union every teacher should keep her/his job including the good, bad,and the ugly...sounds like a movie only it is real-life!
Here is a real solution to helping education in Melrose - De-certify the unions - then "clean house" and then financially reward our highest performing teachers. Perhaps the 100 page current union contract could be reduced to 15 pages with maximum teacher flexibility and more time in the classroom to educate our children. That would be a win for our students rather than the union!
The students and good teachers really don't stand a chance up against the awfulness of this voter-sanctified conspiracy of institutionalized unprofessionalism.
Mr. D makes valid points. I disagree about decertifying the union as the solution. In most cases, the union is all that is left standing between tyrants (which he acknowledges we have at least two of in Melrose) and the working person. Without any union the problems would be much greater, IMHO. However, this Melrose teacher's union is a total disgrace and has been for many years. Look at the top brass and that's clear. They make a mockery of themselves with their unethical practices, their chronically unprofessional choice of leaders, their proven history of letting down the students in favor of themselves.
Watch teachers throughout the district ditch their buildings the instant they can get away with it. Ask around and find out how difficult or even impossible it is for students to meet with their teachers before or after school for help. Look at the brazen contempt that many of them display quite openly, with their refusal to return student work, post assignments or feedback online (or anyplace for that matter), their disrespectful conduct towards parents (and students), the chronic bullying that some of them are known for (which the union has never punished). Then look at how the union brass is in total cahoots with administration much if not most of the time, with the top two even brazenly arriving at negotiating sessions in the same car. Look at who has been the prez and union reps in each building and that says a lot, with a few notable exceptions (like Mrs. Weeks who was summarily dismissed last year the day before school opened because she wasn't one of the chosen favorites).
That isn't what I have experienced. In fact, I have been so impressed by the teachers and their responsiveness to our kids' needs. They have stayed way beyond school hours, even helping them on projects that were assigned by other teachers.
You don't have children in the schools now so you shouldn't be making comments like that.
Great to hear...1 out of 3,300 parents...sounds like they are on a roll!
I know for a fact that the poster does not have any kids I the system yet feels the need to post relentlessly about the school system. Unless she has kids in the system, I think she needs to stop these daily postings and get some other hobby to occupy her time.
I do have kids in the system and I have many experiences where the teachers went out of their way to help. Last semester, a teacher helped one of my kids in a subject area that she didn't even teach, both before and after school, simply because he asked for help.
So please stop bashing the teachers, especially if you don't have kids in the system.
What is it with these self-righteous "I have kids in the system, so I know and therefore everyone else is invalid" types? Good for this parent that she "has kids in the system," and good that she is seeing good things from the teachers. That simply is not a reason to preach self-righteously that her experience is valid and those who criticize are rendered therefore invalid. That's not how the real world works. Maybe in Melrose that kind of small-minded parochial attitude can keep getting traction, but it does no one any good in the overall picture.
Sure, no doubt there are a lot of very dedicated teachers trying very hard always to place the students first, in spite of a bunch of administrators with the support of parents like that one standing in the way of progress by being arrogant, ignorant, selfish, and never caring about the students except so far as they are a necessary evil of getting a paycheck.
This "not true" character is a paradigm of the self-righteous know-it-all parent (bet you 5 overpriced frappuchinos that it's an elementary parent!). As long as there is a stable full of these types propping up the stable of D- administrators and F- school committee members, there is no hope that things will ever get better in the Melrose schools. And it looks like Melrose has a continuously renewing crop of these types. Too bad, Melrose kiddies, you can blame your C- education on your very own parents.
Wow, talk about striking a nerve. One post supporting our teachers and Mrs. Vitriolic goes bonkers.