from just a few postings to this all of a sudden (and it's only beginning):
http://www.schoolspring.com/jobs/?employer=11073&status=20,30
Public Postings
Date Job Title School/Site
May 6 Spanish Teacher - Long Term Substitute (remainder of year) Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School
Apr 28 High School Math Teacher Melrose High School
Apr 27 School Social Worker - Anticipated (split position) -- Various --
Apr 27 Anticipated Middle School Science Teacher Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School
Apr 27 Speech Language - (.8) Anticipated Winthrop Elementary School
Apr 27 Anticipated Physical Education/Health Teacher Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School
Apr 27 Special Education Teachers Anticipated Middle School (2) Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School
Apr 27 Anticipated High School Social Studies Teacher Melrose High School
Apr 27 Life Skills Special Education Teacher - Anticipated Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School
Apr 27 Job Coach - Anticipated Melrose High School
Apr 27 Tech Ed/Engineering Teachers Anticipated (2) -- Various --
Apr 27 Anticipated Elementary Teacher (4) -- Various --
Apr 27 Language Based Classroom Teacher Anticipated Horace Mann Elementary School
Apr 27 Mathematics Teacher Anticipated Secondary (2) Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School
Mar 9 SLP Long Term Substitute Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School
Many (if not most) of CT's hires are leaving, getting out as quickly as they can. Many veteran teachers are trying to find a way to leave (though it's a lot more complicated) because they report that the teaching environment under this administration is absolutely toxic, top to bottom, elementary through secondary, in the district. There are some faculties (like middle school) where you'd be hard-pressed to find a single staff member who finds the atmosphere anything other than untenable.
And this is the administration that the gullible elementary parents are being told is so great. This is the administration that the mayor extolls as "exemplary" and is hoping will rally the forces he wants for his quackery Override scheme. It's really beyond belief because the actual state of affairs is truly disastrous and things are coming apart at the seams all over the district. You won't find a single department in any subject area where things are being managed competently (if you care to look). But then again, you can believe the Quack Brigade if that helps you sleep at night. The smart parents know that things are really abysmal and very much in need of the major shakeup that is inevitable, another huge exodus that they will try to cover over but won't be able to. The sky in the district actually is falling, but many of the parents are content to have another drink and hope it all just goes away. "It" and most of the good teachers certainly will, one way or another.
Is Dr. Peterson retiring this year ?
Dr P is not retirement age.
Is this a lot of job openings? Wakefield also has 20+ openings for 9/2015. Need to know the "normal" for Melrose and also for surrounding districts to make an intelligent analysis of this!
It's a lot for this time of year. And there are many teachers trying to leave, not because they want to move closer to home or because of money. It's about needing to leave the awful working conditions that this administration (across the board) has created. With a couple possible exceptions, most of the principals and chairs are just plain awful. The new one is a total disaster and is ruining the arts program in short order. Don't even talk about the asst. supers because they're so beyond any issue of competence or even basic literacy. It is a world class mess. We actually have to hope there is a mass exodus now because every week that goes by with this bunch more damage is done.
Anyone who thinks that throwing more money at this disaster will make it better is totally deluded. It isn't about money. It's about basic qualifications, starting at the top, and starting with the stark and absolute absence of the requisite people and communication skills, along with having no understanding that their roles as public employees mean that they are required to be fully accountable to the public that is paying their salaries.
It's also fundamentally about the need to remove a bunch of very bad elected officials who have failed miserably in their oversight role and in understanding that they don't have any right to run a secret government. That means the community needs to step up and demand change and put forward decent candidates.
I checked Stoneham and Wakefield, and both have 25+ openings, too. Not sure if this is any indication of anything- though I do agree- need to kill the override. Not the answer to the problems- but again, I don't think the job openings are a big issue.
Yes, and considering the school committee already approved 2 new K teachers due to the increased enrollment in Melrose I don't think 4 new elementary school hires is exactly a major issue. It is just this board trying to make up problems and fan the flames of paranoia. Most people see through these types of nonsense postings.
Casatelli's argument that the influx of so many kindergarten students "proves" the success of the school system is just specious. It only proves that the realtors have been successful in portraying a fiction to young parents wanting to buy homes in Melrose. With the many families now up in arms because they didn't get their Kindergarten choice in their falsely labeled "Neighborhood School" the community will now see some outrage from this bunch that the mayor and administration had hoped would be in the front lines supporting the Override.
No matter where you are, the grass is always greener somewhere else.
Not greener, just less rotten.
I teach in a district fairly far from Melrose (where I live). I can tell you that many districts have many openings posted, starting now and continuing through the early summer. It is a natural process each spring, with people retiring, people wanting a change, and people leaving the profession. I am not overly concerned by the number of openings in Melrose, but here is what concerns me: I have had three separate veteran teachers contact me over the past two weeks. They had seen that there were some retirements in my district, leaving some key teaching positions open, and each was reaching out to ask me how they might present themselves to be a more attractive candidate. I was struck by a few things:
- All three teachers are Melrose residents, each willing to leave a job where they have Professional Status, and add a 45-minute (each way) commute to their busy lives.
- None of them has told administration that they are actively looking for new jobs. One told me that she was "afraid of retaliation" by her principal and Taymore, if either found out that she tried to leave, and then couldn't find a job and had to stay.
- Each of them used some form of an expression that included the word "toxic", to describe the working environment in their respective schools.
- Though hoping for a pay raise, one of them said, "I would even consider a part-time position where I might have to take a pay cut if it would get me out."
This is concerning to me. The veteran teachers where I work would never consider leaving, just to "get out" (maybe for a more convenient commute, or for a higher paying gig). I would say that we know we have it pretty good. We love our jobs, have a fair amount of job security, and have supportive parents and administrators overall. Starting a new teaching position after establishing yourself as a veteran in your current position really just seems like a lot of unnecessary work to me. But, these people want to do that. It just makes me wonder how bad it really is, and what kind of newbie teachers Melrose might end up with, if veterans do not want to work there (even ones who are already there).
to "Greener for Sure". Thanks. That is the kin of information needed to determine if the open positions are an issue- and it seems they are, based on your experience! have to be careful when reading message boards, as information can be spun any way- but concrete info as you have provided is much more relevant!
This poster posts this message every single year that the sky is falling and every teacher in Melrose is going to quit and frankly, she is wrong every year despite the doomsday message. I'm actually surprised at how many teachers stay every year given how little we pay our teachers in comparison to other districts.
The kind of newbies this administration hires are the C- students that other districts won't hire. Our district is now filled with them thanks to these most recent two superintendents. The kinds of teachers who are desperate to leave are among the district's finest and most dedicated.
You are very welcome!
So who is the math teacher at the high school who is leaving? Is it indeed Dr. P?
Is that just a rumor, or has she told her students? If so, who will teach AP Calc next year?
Dr. P is leaving the district but not retiring from teaching.
This great teacher is still on the faculty, she hasn't given notice, and everyone needs to understand that whatever happens, that is her private business until or if she decides to make a change. Her car is still there in the MHS parking lot earlier and later than anyone else's, she's 110% about her students, and all of you hysterical parents need to step back and remember that you don't have a right to her personal information until it's public, if and when it is. As of right now, she is only about her students, as always. If she leaves, everyone will be given notice, starting with her students, since those are the people she has intense loyalty to. If she leaves, there will be no replacing her, and it will be an immeasurable loss, but until then, back off and leave her alone to do the only thing she cares about--teaching MHS kids to the absolute best of her abilities.
For parents who just don't know what to do with their anxiety, get on the stick and start fighting for all of the good teachers who are so intensely miserable that each day is a torture in the MPS. Unless you are one of those idiotic evangelists of the administration and think education is going in the right direction here, step up and start fighting for what is left that's any good because it is a virtual guarantee that it is a threatened species now. Anyone who actually knows what it means to teach and to inspire a love of learning is being harassed and besieged. Only the hacks are sitting pretty right now because they've put all the correct things on their StupidBoards, unpacked all their rubrics, written up their volumninous stupidities and gotten the papal blessings from the hack administrators, while Rome burns and the kids die a thousand deaths--of boredom, of demoralization, of the dying interest in anything beyond their smartphone or social life. It has become a gawdawful place to have to spend a day, let alone 13 years of days. And yes, sure there are kids who got into great schools. Big whoop. Good for them, now back off and focus on your own kids and stop feeding the sick machine that has become MHS, with grade/college comparing, etc. No wonder so many Melrose kids are wracked with depression and anxiety! Sheesh!
She told her students that she IS leaving
When Dr. P gave her resignation notice to the District and informed her students that she is not returning to MHS, did she say where she will be teaching next year? I heard that she is going to a private school....?
She did not necessarily give notice, and it is none of our business what she plans to do.
[/quote]A daughter of a friend (who is just finishing her 3rd year teaching in a large urban HS) has begun to explore other Math jobs). She was told by numerous sources NOT to apply in Melrose because the teachers are unhappy and that the SC and administrators crush creativity and spirits. Better off to stay in her current position.[/quote]
For those of you who have had to meet with Cyndy Taymore for whatever reason or resolve a personal problem, understand why teachers are unhappy! She has a serious attitude problem.
A friend of my cousins second cousins niece's husband told me that Melrose Messages is the biggest disgrace on the internet full of lies, misinformation, unsubstantiated rumors and anonymous personal attacks.
What a typical bozo post by the MM Clown Patrol.
if you want to try and deflect that's OK....true that Taymore was ONLY an assistant super before Melrose hired her and that she does not have a doctorate (and IS old/retirement age)....the new Lincoln head was ONLY an acting/interim Principal which is what Melrose had to hire because they had no options of experienced long term Principals who wanted the job.....facts
"an acting/interim Principal which is what Melrose had to hire because they had no options of experienced long term Principals"
Melrose "had" to hire the bottom of barrel because that's all who applied to work under this awful administration, and that's the only kind of employee this superintendent would hire anyway because she wouldn't want anyone too qualified. This stupid community of parents thinks she hung the moon. So bottom of the barrel hires end up being all Melrose can draw or deserves (until it wakes up and dumps the bad ones at the top). Highly qualified hires will go anyplace else, including where there is less money. Workplace environment matters. Melrose has lost quite a few fine candidates after a few minutes interviewing here (the good ones wouldn't need more than a few minutes talking with CT to know that she is bad news).
Workplace environment matters for all .