Saw this on the What Melrose Wants post. Says it all.
All Angles - Something's seems to be missing in your thinking unless you believe the principal and superintendent should have passed the whole investigation on to metco to conduct in a proper way. Since they didn't, metco wouldn't have had any standing to intervene. You don't know that metco personnel in Boston didn't try to get administrators to let them respond.
However, if they had:
Perhaps metco personnel would have welcomed the chance to address the underpinnings of the racially hostile environment in Melrose.
Perhaps metco personnel would have taken the situation seriously and not just considered it another incident to suppress so as to avoid bad publicity for administrators, school committee and mayor.
Perhaps metco personnel wouldn't have forced the student to go into the room with the offending teacher and two principals to be harmed again.
Perhaps metco personnel would have done a real investigation - including interviewing immediately the other adult witness in the room and all the other student witnesses who heard exactly what was said by both the student and teacher.
Perhaps metco personnel would have been impartial and wouldn't have tried to sweep the whole thing under the rug from the beginning.
Perhaps metco personnel would have gotten the student out of the teacher's room from the first day and not made him sit there until the mother took the matter into her own hands.
Perhaps metco personnel would have kept in close touch with the student to help him process the incident, and out of genuine concern for his well being.
Perhaps metco personnel wouldn't have gone fishing to rationalize racist assaults with whatever an eighth grade student's prior behavior record was.
Perhaps metco personnel wouldn't have violated confidentiality by implying to the press that the student had any prior record of bad behavior at all in the school. If he did, they violated it. If he didn't, they slandered him.
Perhaps metco personnel wouldn't have told the press the teacher had a 'relatively' unblemished personnel record, violating her reasonable expectation of confidentiality.
Perhaps metco personnel wouldn't have ignored the many students and parents who reported the incident to administration, the mayor and school committee members and who demanded the district respond appropriately.
Perhaps metco personnel would have provided a timely debriefing and proper counseling for all the affected students so the incident could have been processed in reasonable time frame, lessons learned, and with a better school environment as a result.
Perhaps metco personnel wouldn't have moved the teacher into the high school which the harmed students were about to enter as freshmen.
Perhaps metco personnel would have trained the teacher and returned her to an eighth grade class which she was qualified to teach the next year instead of high school classes she had never taught before.
Perhaps metco personnel would have communicated appropriate information with the community in a timely way instead of hiding behind the cloak of confidentiality and pretending nothing happened.
Perhaps metco personnel would have handled the situation so well that Melrose would be better having processed through it instead of trying to cover it up.
Perhaps metco personnel wouldn't have hired teams of lawyers at taxpayer expense to run interference for administrators just so the public wouldn't find out how shamefully they did their jobs.
Perhaps metco personnel would have led Melrose through this incident during April 2014 instead of going through this mess until December 2018 while the quality of the schools suffers.
Perhaps metco personnel would have made Melrose proud to have addressed the incident in an appropriate way instead of the way those in charge try to save themselves from embarrassment.
PC run amuck...but now it is costing $$$$$
Thank you, ""Real Melrose," for your piercing and true remarks.
It should be noted that Mr. Leibowitz of the Free Press obviously had access to the OCR findings document, whereas it is also obvious that the Globe reporter did not, hence the superficial and misleading aspects of the Globe article (resulting in the bigoted and ignorant remarks).
The OCR Findings are a condemnation of the school administration of a degree so serious that there should be a widespread community call for the resignation of all who knowingly participated in the wrongful actions, including members of the School Committee. This is the only path that could lead to redemption of the school system and governing bodies in the eyes of the public.
https://vimeo.com/151599684
SC Meeting from January 12, it's worth listening to Mr. Mroz (approx 12 minutes in). He articulates the situation correctly, and all of us should care about what he said. It's worth noting the demeanor and words of the chair and superintendent, neither of whom represents a respectful voice of the community, and in fact are quite obviously interested only in shutting down anything honest or that reflects in a real way what has happened and what needs to be done to begin correcting the egregious misconduct. In the face of the OCR findings it is quite incredible that the arrogance would persist so flagrantly rather than what should have happened, which is a humble and honest reaching out to the whole community. It's really quite disturbing and says a lot that isn't flattering.
Just listened to a soundbyte (hard to stomach it all) of their consultant about their ridiculous "norms": "There has to be trust and mutual respect" for [effective working together]. Why anyone would trust most of those in that room defies comprehension. The majority functions as a bully majority (RD's strident protestations to the contrary are an indication of classic projection: Deny the obvious that any halfway perceptive individual can observe easily and do it loudly so that it obscures the obvious truth). The new ones don't engender confidence, though hopefully that will change and perhaps they will understand how damaging it will be for them personally if they go along to get along with that bunch.
First meeting of the year last week was a disappointment. The elephant in the room was hideously bypassed by all except Mr. Mroz, who rightly called out the SC and administration. EoC was useless and contributed exactly nothing. LdS was well prepared and had some good questions, particularly about the finances, where she caught a big discrepancy. She made some good comments about the rambling pathetic "norms" but did a lot of talking just to hear herself be impressive. Hopefully she'll cut out that stuff and stick with the important work she has the obvious intelligence to do. JD is more of a blowhard than ever and should keep quiet about her "intentional" this and that. She sounds like a total shill. MD sounds and looks more crazy than ever. She is out of control and needs to be reined in. CC has shown her true colors many times and demonstrated her total ineffectiveness despite her pretentiousness. CKK was apparently absent (and lucky to be so). What an embarrassment of a committee.
CT needs to be booted.
Just wait the COALITION is going to fix everything. Melrose Messages whiners are organizing. Where and when is that meeting again...
Yesterday's Free Press article pretty much confirms the original post.