Looking forward to graduation where another stellar group of students will eave MHS to attend the top colleges and universities in the country. In a class of 230 students 30 kids will be attending schools ranked most selective or very selective by College Board. 1 Harvard, 1 Cornell, 2 Browns leading the way along with students enrolling in Tufts, Northeastern, Boston College, WPI, RPI, GW, Babson, Bentley, McGill, Villanova, Brandies, Philips Exeter, Holy Cross, MA College of Pharmacy and Vassar...along with a number of students who turned down acceptances to other Nescac schools to attend the honors program at UMass or great scholarship deals at other Universities. 3 years in a row now and the results get better each year. The community should be proud of these kids. They all made the most of their opportunities at MHS.
Great post, Margaret Driscoll....
That is only 13% of high school grads going to competitive colleges. Not so good. Ho hum....
Takes an hour for a Bozo to try and diminish the accomplishments of MHS students. Put up or shut up time. Where are the Melrose kids enrolled at the local parochial schools going? That will be the mediocre list, along with "The fools who needlessly separated themselves from $60,000" list. 4 Ivies baby. Boo Yah! Eat your hearts out you losers. That 13% is twice as deep as MC, AP and BF will go for all students...never mind the under achievers who fled Melrose.
http://www.exeter.edu
From the OPs list: Phillips Exeter is a high school so I don't understand the glory in being accepted there as a post-grad.
I've read it before on here and it's true. The college acceptances are standard for Melrose's demographics. Nothing terrible but nothing great either. The vast majority of kids (200/230) are attending whatever adequate school, working or military.
I'm not taking anything away from the kids, and all 230 are kids but please don't overstate the successes here.
Clown Patrol, go look up some Catholic school acceptances or something. Take yourself out for dinner with the 60k you proudly saved. Something. Because there should be no war of public vs. Catholic schools.
Want to impress me? Show me the retention rate after two years. That's a far better barometer to how well they were prepared than is acceptances and enrollments. I do agree that the enrollment statistics seem mediocre, if your only criteria is "top-tier" enrollments, but who quantifies what that even is?
Ahhh...Waka, Waka, Waka
The bozo brigade is in full marching formation. Only a complete clown wouldn't understand the accomplishment of getting into Exeter, never mind having to google it and calling it a high school. It's the same ignorance that wouldn't recognize 30 kids at MHS getting into the most competitive schools in the country as a big accomplishment.Start honking your noses and get going on the parochial school acceptance lists, and their 2 year retention lists while you are at. Any way you measure it the kids who flee Melrose every year don't measure up. I smell buyers remorse all over Melrose. Honk, Honk.
No offense intended, of course, but isn't it just we "old fogies" who are still around for the weekend? Shouldn't you 'be somewhere', having fun, and not concerned about this "ongoing controversy", for at least a few days?
Responding to a few comments for the purposes of clarification. College Board is a website that provides all kinds of information for students and is the company that runs the AP program and the SAT's. They have a college profile section that students use to find information on colleges and universities. The information also ranks colleges based on their overall acceptance rates. Most selective and very selective refer to the most difficult schools to get into. Having 30 students gain entrance and enroll in schools in these categories is a tremendous accomplishment for any senior class in any community. Philips Exeter is the most difficult prep school in the country to get into. Really, if you don't understand the process you have no business commenting on the subject. It demonstrates ignorance.
Phillips Exeter is a high school, so stop misinforming people.
From their own website: "Every year, a number of students who have completed the eleventh grade at another school, as well as high school graduates who have already earned their diploma elsewhere, are admitted to Exeter’s SENIOR CLASS. Approximately 15 percent of seniors are new to Exeter each fall; most of these seniors are post-graduate students. Usually, post-graduate students want to strengthen their academic record"
In other words, Phillips Exeter is a great high school where some Melrose grads may have to go to beef up their academics that they DID NOT AND COULD NOT get from the Melrose Public schools. Phillips Exeter is in no way a college.
Honestly, you are as bad as the school committee, superintendent and the mayor of simpleton as far as misinforming the public. If I didn't know any better, I would think Clown Patrol is in fact one of these people. You folks do nothing for these kids, who deserve better than the less-than-adequate education they are receiving here in Melrose. By being dishonest with yourselves and the parents in Melrose, you do the kids a disservice by delaying the desperately needed restructuring that will be necessary to get our schools back on solid footing. It requires that you admit when you make mistakes and correct those mistakes asap (like the failed superintendent hire). It takes hard work and bravery to stand up to the other pretenders on school committee, in MEF and in city hall who are only concerned with how our schools are perceived, cheerleading and real estate values.
Hey geezer, go change your diapers you old fool. There is no controversy. Just a bunch of clowns trying to turn great news into a negative. Absolutely correct is clearly a delusional moron who sees the city through the clown glasses and the big red nose. People can't get into Melrose and those that do are paying a fortune. Only a bunch of clowns would allow themselves to drop $500,000+ based on statements from realtors and administrators. Its nice to paint that picture if you are a bozo that hates Melrose or dropped $15,000 a year on a coloring book school, but the reality is people with brains and money are buying into Melrose because its a great City and they see 4 kids going to Ivy league schools and dozens of other doing great things at MHS. They know their kids will have the same opportunity. Its too bad the bozo brigade has dumb kids or kids that couldn't handle MHS and fled, but it doesn't change the fact that the majority of MHS students can do whatever they want to do out of MHS.
Clown Patrol: Your are funny and entertaining. Problem is, everyone one is laughing at you (not with you) because of your ridiculous assertions.
Yes, we all like Melrose (after all we live here) despite the troubled schools. People are buying into Melrose because of it's interesting housing stock, tree lined streets, walkability and open recreational areas (MDC, etc.)and proximity to Boston/easy commute by rail or car, DESPITE the well known issues with the school administrators and complacent school committee. I moved in almost 20 years ago with the hopes of the schools improving, particularly the high school. Four superintendents later, with unarguably the worst, most controversial now in place that has put us in the national and regional spotlight for it's systemic illegal treatment of minorities, SPED (children with disabilities), it is clear that things will not be changing soon until the school committee gets a pair of b@lls and removes their own tragic Superintendent selection of 2012.
Now, go jump into your Nissan Cube, drive down to city hall and report to the boy in the corner office that Melrose parents are not happy with the schools (duh).
Some of the students accepted to top Schools over the past few years have gained entrance because (1 or more) parents and grandparents have ever gone there. Alumni contributions help tremendously. Can you spell "Legacy" ?
I know several families whose kids graduated from MHS this year, and have gotten into selective colleges or programs, or at least their first choice college. I also know several families of very successful graduates from previous years who did very well, got into elite colleges or programs. The vast majority couldn't WAIT for their kids to get out of MHS.
I applaud these kids for their accomplishments.....it means even more considering they had so little support from their high school. Unlike their peers at private schools, these kids had very little contact with a guidance counselor. They had to navigate a minefield of poor quality instruction and uncaring teachers, struggling every year to avoid the worst, while trying to take courses taught by the dwindling number of excellent staff. They may have had to drop a subject they loved, and were good at, to avoid a horrible teacher. They may have been given bad advice, and never told that they needed to take SAT subject tests for the schools they were interested in, or never told what the proper timing for taking them was. They may have had the misfortune of getting one of the freshly minted AP instructors, who are not really experts in the content, and whose only qualifications consist of a 3 day workshop on the course.
No one is criticizing kids except the OP, who is jeering at and mocking kids from Melrose who didn't attend MHS, for whatever reason. Kudos to all the MHS kids who did well. As a parent of a graduate and two more currently attending MHS, I know full well how hard it was.
Ahhh...Waka, Waka, Waka
Isn't your arm getting tired? You better stop before you go blind.
Keep trying to demean the graduates, you clowns. Why don't you all pile yourselves into your tiny clown car and show up at graduation, honking your noses and waddling to your seats with your giant shoes. No, you'd never do that, because you know I am right. MHS is awesome, and you all know it. We have the greatest kids in the state and booyah!- they are all going to great schools. You'll all just have to hide out in your circus tent till graduation is over. You have nothing to say that can bring down the kids or their great teachers. Paint on your sad faces, you clowns!
Clown Patrol, no one is trying to demean the kids. It is you who is demeaning the kids' accomplishments by claiming MHS deserves credit and not the kids. If MHS admins did a better job, the numbers would be higher and the kids going to top schools wouldn't hate MHS as much as they do now. Clown patrol is still not facing reality by actually talking to a high achieving kid. MHS admins are the equivalent of dementors who want to suck the life out of the students and faculty. Only those who have no academic ambitions and are happy with less than average academics love going to MHS.
I really do try to refrain from insults, but in this case, I just can't take any more. Every post by this Clown Patrol idiot is just a rehash of the same old crap - MHS is wonderful, any other choice of school is made by idiots who can't hack it at MHS, and anyone who has a different opinion is a brain-dead moron.
You represent the Dolan administration perfectly. You are a complete and total a$$hole. Please go play in traffic and get hit by a truck.
Let's here it for the clowns!! Here, here to a pack of feckless losers who don't understand that they and their dullard kids are the real problem. In the face of the most successful MHS class in the last 20 years they still can't pull their heads out of their @sses and simply acknowledge the fact that Melrose High School works fantastically for a great number of kids and families. The most successful academic and athletic class in decades and fat boy MFD, who hasn't stepped foot in an elementary school in 30 years, is crying as the misunderstood victim. Fatso, "we all" amounts to a half dozen parents of school age kids who just can't figure out why little jimmy can't make the varsity roster or get A's in honors classes and shipped them off to color book parochial school, or the losers like you without a kid in any school system just hoping your taxes don't go up. MHS graduation is Friday. It will be a great celebration of successful kids, great teachers, happy families and a system that works. You losers can eat your hearts out.
Ahhh...Waka, Waka, Waka
You've spent an awful lot of time this holiday weekend demeaning those who wish for better schools for their children. If you are happy with the current state of affairs at the Melrose schools, that's fine. But shut up and get out of the way if you don't care to improve education for our kids. If you really care about the schools, don't get distracted by the superintendent's completely irrelevant distractions such as the "feather" campaign that are only meant to distract MEF mommies from the real academic issues and serious civil rights violations being perpetrated on minorities, SPED children and their families by the super, assistant super, city solicitor, various principals and their enablers on school committee. [:|]
[USA]
I'd like to know how this poster knows the exact number of kids that supposedly got into these selective schools.....is this a staff member posting? Is the guidance office giving out the names and list of acceptances of individual kids to certain "friends" of the district? That is a violation of student privacy, and totally out of line.
And if Buxton the guidance chair can give this information out to individuals so that they can post on Melrose Messages, why doesn't he publish the list of schools showing how many applied, how many were rejected, and how many attended, like they used to do? Funny how that list disappeared. No one wants to see how many kids couldn't get into Bridgewater State, do they.
I am sick to death of school administrators and local politicians promoting themselves and padding their contracts on the backs of a few hard working kids and staff, when these same self promoters are no where to be found when a kid has a problem. Instead of putting all your efforts into trying to impress elementary parents with how GREAT the high school is, and how much you deserve credit for making it so, maybe you could actually TALK TO SOME REAL HIGH SCHOOL PARENTS, who aren't part of MEF, or who aren't working for the city or the school department, or looking to get hired by the city or school department.
Stop using the hard work done by other people's children, and the few remaining good staff members you haven't driven out, to ask for a raise, or your contract renewed, or my vote. People who are truly happy and satisfied with their kids education have no need or desire to go online and argue with those who are not. This is all self serving and political, staff members and politicians trying to get votes, cover their ass*s, and pad their retirements. Leave the kids alone....if the kids or their families want to credit the high school and district staff and administrators for their accomplishments, they can speak for themselves.
Parent chooses ignorance to help promote anti-Melrose agenda. The college selections of MHS seniors are published in the annual high school graduation guide. Go to graduation Friday and you can get your own copy.
Posters like Clown Patrol and Ignorance Is Bliss (assuming they're not the same poster) are too dumb to realize that all they accomplish by continuing to post such drivel on this board is to promote more and more discussion, not halt it like the Mayor and the administration want. I'd include the Mayor because he's behind it all - he can't seem to keep his nasty mouth shut about that stupid failed override either. These nitwits are so focused on covering their own a$$es they don't realize they are promoting the opposition point.
They still can't believe that they lost the override - by 2 to 1! That's a punch in the mouth to the Mayor and Taymore - and they don't like it! Now that Taymore will not get her raise this year - all hell will break lose between her and the schools. Her energy for her job will diminish, her enthusiasm and interest to push ahead reforms and improvements will put on the "back burner" and her interest to work with the public will cease to exist, although it was only a minimum effort to begin with.
Funny this: "Her energy for her job will diminish, her enthusiasm and interest to push ahead reforms..." She was whining even in her first months on the job about the demands of her job, attending next to nothing of the student performances (attending even less now), refusing to attend much of anything in the community, even when tickets and invitations were graciously provided (like to MSO, etc.), and neglecting required attendance at many evening meetings, including the most recent presentation of HER ridiculous "budget" to the joint BOA and SC meeting, (also no business manager present). While she has whined and groaned about the things she has attended, her stark absence at so much else is in contrast to her bragging about "the hard work" of her and her staff. Bunk! They have gotten by with less than the required minimum, and yet you'd think from their proclamations that they were the most dedicated staff Melrose has ever seen. No, not a chance. Just try finding one of these charlatan blowhards at 3:49 or worse, during the summer, when most are still supposed to be on the job. Watch them leave frequently and come back fresh from the hair salon or lunch dates or shopping, while collecting their bloated six-figure salaries. Melrose has been taken to the cleaners with this crew.
Maybe it is time for are Superintendent to be forced to step down?How much longer can Superintenent Cyndy S. Taymore .Do this job.Some of you will agree with what i have put here tonight, and some of you will disagree, we all have an opinion. And they're all good opinions, good night to you all.
The 2016 Valedictorian for The College of The Holy Cross is a 2012 Graduate of Melrose High School. To all of you fools that continue to take shots at MHS and claim it does not prepare students for college I only have this to say...EAT IT; EAT IT; SUC IT; SUC IT; SUC IT; AND EAT IT AGAIN!!!!!!
Ahhh...Waka, Waka, Waka
Parent wants it both ways. Parent doesn't want the school system to get any credit when kids do well, but wants them to shoulder all of the blame when standardized test results are average. Nice little system to set up if you have an anti Melrose agenda.
I'm glad you confirmed...now you can feel comfortable when you EAT IT; EAT IT; SUC IT; SUC IT; SUC IT; AND EAT IT AGAIN!!!!!!
The cream will always rise to the top, in any district. No surprises there. We have students from wealthy, highly educated families who do well in high school, and continue to do well in college. Did you ask all of these kids whose accomplishments and names you are sharing how they felt about their MHS experience? Did you ask them if the college they ended up attending was the college they really wanted to go to, or did their first choice, (and second, and third) reject them? You might be surprised at the answer. One kid's selective dream school, is another kids disappointing safety school. I've heard plenty of those stories over the years.
We have parents of MHS students who are teaching at MIT and Harvard, we have PH.D. s, physicians, scientists, etc, do you really think some of these kids would not do well anywhere? Many of the parents of these students you are bragging about can have their kids apply ED and write a check for 70k every year, no problem. There is no such thing as need blind admission, so wealthy kids have a better shot at getting accepted to these schools, and we have an increasing number of wealthy families here in Melrose. Natural ability, unlimited resources and support from educated parents, and a good work ethic all mean that a certain percentage of kids will do well.
Why don't you ask some of these kids and parents how they feel about the stellar job MHS has done? Better yet, why don't you ask a random sampling of kids and parents about their experiences at MHS? Maybe instead of the high school staff feeding you information to post on Melrose Messages, they could spend more time posting their 4th quarter grades, so that the kids who are currently working hard to get into these selective colleges can keep track of their GPAs. And maybe they could practice being more professional, and not complaining to the students about how much they dislike the principal, the parents of students who "bother" them, how "hard" their job is, and how much they can't stand doing it.
Parent – I took your advice and talked to parents and kids that are enrolled at Harvard, Williams, Brown, Holy Cross,BU, BC, the military academies as well as a number of top notch state and private schools, including their honors programs. All of them got into their top choices and are thrilled with the way MHS prepared them for the next level. Thanks for the suggestion, it confirmed my understanding that MHS is a great school. I am not sure that worked out how you were planning…EAT IT; EAT IT; SUC IT; SUC IT; SUC IT; AND EAT IT AGAIN!!!!!!