A message from MELROSE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Dear High School and Eighth Grade Families,
This is a very exciting time to be involved in the Melrose Public Schools community. It is a time of great things and great change. With that change came some anxiety after the departure of one of my senior staff members, Director for Finance and Administrative Affairs Jay Picone who left in April to work at Northeast Regional Vocational Technical School.
As we look at our expanding student roster, space needs, capital projects, and ongoing efforts to improve and excel in all areas, one of my primary goals is to ensure that the progress we are making as a district and the strides we are watching unfold among our students and faculty continue unabated, despite any transitions. However, we are very fortunate to have a tremendous amount of talent and versatility on our team.
That is why I am very proud to announce that I am recommending Marianne Farrell as district’s new Director for Finance and Administrative Affairs. Subject to the approval of the school committee, Marianne will transition this summer from the high school to central administration in an interim basis, which we intend to become a permanent role upon the completion of state certifications. Marianne is a tremendous administrator who has a breadth of knowledge and experience. This will help ensure that the business of the district continues during these next vital years without missing a beat.
Given the time of year, we will be posting for an interim high school principal job shortly, and we expect to fill it from within, again thanks to the talent we have developed within our district.
Please join me in congratulating Marianne on her new role.
Sincerely,
Cyndy S. Taymore
Superintendent of Schools
So the lousy principal now gets to be the next lousy hack of a rookie business manager. Just what the district needs. "Promoted from within" is Dolan's new mantra for making sure he has a cast of middle managers that he can control utterly. Disgusting.
So now we have "deer in the headlights" Marianne Farrell as the new school business manager to replace "I don't know much" Jay Picone? Wow - this school district is going down the drain fast! An incompetent replacing another incompetent! I guess this makes sense to incompetent Taymore!
more like circling the drain
If I had to guess, Brent Conway's pegged for the Highschool Principal job. He's been getting lots of face time at school committee meetings.
So that's why they didn't like the candidates they interviewed. I thought they were afraid to hire someone who would expose them. I guess they did hire that person.
So will we still have the same Asst. Principals? Who is the new AD ? Are they interviewing ? Does Ms Farrell have accounting experience ?
Swell. A 36 million dollar budget administered by another rank amateur "business manager" who has neither business or management qualifications.
While Farrell does have her nose planted firmly in Taymore's butt, you can bet this decision was made by Dolan, who continues to surround himself with incompetents he can totally control. I would not have thought things could possible get any worse, but Farrell as business manager and Conway as HS principal? It just did. If you thought Picone was a bumbling idiot, it's about to go to a whole new level.
What insanity! I can't locate any information about Farrell's qualification for this position.
Shouldn't there have been information noted in a school committee meeting that Farrell had applied for this position as was done for all the previous candidates for this position? After all, she is the permanent high school principal and replacing her is a major position opening for our starship school! There appears to be many behind the scenes activities going on and the public has conveniently been left out of the conversations - as usual. What was the race to have this position filled so quickly prior to letting the public know? Many questions but few answers.
What a bunch of whiners out here. It will be good to have a person on the finance/administration side that understands the implication that the SC's financial decisions have on the academic side. This makes perfect sense everywhere except on this board.
She stepped in on an interim basis and did a good job for MHS and now is moving into a different role.
@MFD -- exactly! My opinion is that it's because the SC & the super don't want people to know until it's too late to make a change. Regardless of how you feel about valedictorians, class ranks, feathers, all of those decisions were made in a private vacuum.
Did the SC not know of Farrell's interest when they budgeted for the temp agency to help out? They said they were having trouble finding suitable candidates for the job.
No mention of the HS principal being considered.
The guy who I hold responsible for Kick a Ginger Day might get promoted? Jeez. I thought he was lucky to keep his job after that fiasco went international.
@MFD Could you find her resume or credentials at all? I didn't see her on linkedin or in alum notes for a college or anything similar.
The PR agency will write it for her - just as they wrote this email. "Talent and Versatility" Yesterday she was the principal...today she manages the budget for the district! Next year - why maybe we will make her Director of Curriculum - or maybe Director of Technology - or maybe both! Wait for it - maybe she is also the new Athletic Director! Everyone on the staff is just so talented and versatile! Melrose is so very, very fortunate.
Who can dig up the notification of when they made her principal of MHS. Would love to recall what it said with regard to her talent and versatility.
Well it will certainly be easier for the Super and SC chair to pull the wool over her eyes when they spend money set aside for Toshiba phones for legal services.
She couldn't find anyone who was already certified and has experience? We have to get someone who isn't yet certified? "Marianne will transition this summer from the high school to central administration in an interim basis, which we intend to become a permanent role upon the completion of state certifications."
If she is an interim business manager pending state licensing does that mean she's not fully qualified and CT just wants a puppet in that position. As for the the AD, rumor is that the new position created Director of Health and Wellness is going to good ol Mr. Fogerty. That's what was buzzing around the high school the last few weeks.
Further words on the street: Merrill MHS Principal, Brent new super, lots of that "interim" fever infecting the district, a whole bunch of brown-nosers getting "promoted from within" so as to insure total control by RD to whom they'll owe their new status and salaries.
That "budget crisis" we keep hearing about is just a fiction (of course) because these newly promoted incompetents will be paid a lot, starting with MF, who already makes $134,000 and won't be taking a $15,000 cut for biz mgr salary.
Who cares that 3 department chair positions are out the window or more of the best teachers have said ""Outa Here!"? Nada outrage for the real things. These awful administrators will be shifted around and they'll continue spewing the flowery prose that their hired PR gun writes for them. The sleaze factor has just gotten many times more overtly outrageous and now basically defines the district governance. Does anyone even remember or care that these pinheads are ruining the lives of actual children?
Merrill becomes MHS principal
Fogarty becomes AD
Corrigan (history chair) becomes MHS Asst Principal, Singer heads up all of "humanities"
Conway holds out for superintendent successor, tho he'll have to claw off the drugged and incompetent "Dr" A who is still grubbing for that position.
Moving Drama to Athletics dept (total idiocy--sure Fogarty in charge of Drama, tho probably no worse than Debby DumDum!). Maybe Fogarty could coach football, discipline kids, direct the next school play and teach clarinet lessons all at once (meaning no disrespect to Fog, whose heart is actually in the right place, most of the time, at least)
Idiot brains at work here, folks. Truly unbelievable that the school officials thinks this craziness flies.
Wow.
So most likely these decisions were made before March, or whenever the school committee hid their disgraceful "Reorg Chart" in that stupid IQM2 "packet" of theirs, had their quickie rubber-stamp vote to give Rob and Cyndy even more power to abuse. That was right around the time they concocted that imaginary "award" and did their communal swoon about Cyndy in the week after CKK resigned with that stunning press release that circulated through the region (Boston Globe, etc.) referring back to the unethical and illegal conduct of the school committee and superintendent and calling for Taymore's resignation. So the minute it became clear that CKK was not there to call them out (she is still here and still working to make things better despite all of them), they started rolling out all their next batch of nasties because they figured the coast was clear to do virtually any stupid thing they want to do now, as is clear with every newest revelation. And apparently the worst is yet to come, though most of us thought we'd already hit rock bottom many times over, starting with the Grand Exodus of all but 2 administrators the moment it was announced that Taymore would be the next superintendent 4 years ago. Since then it has been nothing but fun: OCR violations times many, defections of our best teachers (Dr. P being only one of them), OCR times ?, Kick a Ginger Day, all these outrageous shiftings of administrators, Budget presented during joint BOA/SC mtg with no superintendent or budget manager even bothering to show up (let alone a coherent discussion before a rubber stamp vote by both boards), now this outrageous and silly proposal to move many hundreds of children every which way to address a space shortage. It's all just nuts. Much of it seems like just a huge taunt by the mayor to goad the public that he so obviously holds in contempt for failing his ill-conceived override. So he can give the finger to the entire community with all of this school stuff and then do it again with his fake consultants and abusive water and sewer rates, and the community meanwhile heads for their summer cabins, discontent but willing to think that "someone else" will do their heavy lifting and make it all right, or sort of right, while they scoff and shun those "someone else" citizens who do demonstrate their patriotism and concern by stepping up. This place has really gone down the drain.
Maybe when the MEF mommies finally realize that their own cherubs (about whom they've obviously not cared too much so far) will be (most certainly) direly affected by the insane machinations of the officials they've brown-nosed all this time, maybe then there might be some flickers of reaction.
So incredibly messed up.
Best choice for MHS Principal is Mr. Merrill. A decent guy and family man from Melrose. Approachable, reasonable, friendly.
Conway should be gone all together. Total disregard for women, especially anyone over 40. Harasses them on their age, shouldn't they retire, we could hire two teachers at your salary. Who cares if they're terrific teachers, yes there are some, who genuinely care about our kids. Harassed them to the point they retired or left. Check the records at the Lincoln. Or he humiliates them to the point they feel they have no other choice but to leave, and not just teachers, where's our nurse from Mvmms or the secretary he had at the Lincoln? The nurse is working in Wakefield. The secretary??? Supposed to have been voluntarily transferred to the ECC but somehow that position was mysteriously gone and so is she. Check the records at MVMMS. All women, all over 40, really all over 50. All outspoken advocates for our children. In front of the camera he's an actor. A pretty **** good one. Should of moved to Hollywood. Would have fit right in there, as a valet or fluffer. But ask the majority of staff who have worked under him and the truth slowly seeps out. His one and only goal is to become the superintendent no matter the price and the highest cost is that of our children. Oh, and did I mention his wife and Cindy are besties. Ya gal-pal Naomi Blaine is gone so she had to find a new bff and Conway was right there up her a$$ just like a stick to offer his wife. And speaking of Cindy, the only reason she received that award for superintendents is school committee chair, Margaret Driscoll has connections. Guess it's nice to have the last name Driscoll even if by marriage. By the way, how is David doing? Still at DESE? And have any of you checked out all of the feathers all over Melrose School grounds. 26 new banners in the gym, embossed in the floors, in the bricks at mhs, score boards, the flag flying right now in front of mhs, badges OH AND THE BEST OF ALL, after Cindy gave that spurious speech at the school committee on how offensive the feathers are and why she's removing them out pops a letter to us parents on buying up all of the left over clothing with the iconic feathers. Buy them up before they run out. I guess the all mighty dollar comes before offending Native Americans. That's mighty white of ya Cindy. Oh I forgot its Cyndy. What do you think you're a 16-year-old girl? What's next, after purchasing the clothing are they gonna ban the kids from wearing the offensive clothing that you approved to be sold? And she'll say it's not her that oversees this. Bull$hit. As Cindy says, nothing is sent home to parents without her say so. So with Merrill being the only decent candidate don't hold you breath for him to get it. Too bad cause like I said, one of the few good guys.
Let's see if this makes sense to you all!
Marianne Farrell was making $134,000/yr as principal of our flagship high school and now she will be making less than $100,000/yr in a lower level job. That is the salary that Jay Picone was being paid having been on the job for 3+ years - I assume that we would not be paying someone like M. Farrell, with no previous experience at this job, $134,000/yr. If we are going to keep her salary the same - that is totally unjustified - for that money I believe we could hire someone with much more experience
Picone was making about $120,000. Still less but I doubt they'll lower Farrell's pay. Speaking of pay, did you notice in the budget that Cindy gave her administrative staff 1% and froze her own. Well ice melts as its almost summer.
Theatre of The Absurd. Appointing Farrell to the post of School Business Manager is another chapter in playwriting (in a City and School District) which is known far and wide as a joke.
Did anyone watch the video of last evenings school committee meeting? They voted to approve Farrell's lateral move to School business manager. Can you believe this? Here is a person with NO previous experience, no previous business finance experience, no business finance education, and no state certification. It is difficult to comprehend how our superintendent could possible hire such an unqualified candidate other than to say she wants someone in that position that she can control and manipulate - with that qualification - she meets!
Taymore told the committee that last spring she received 20 applications and interviewed the top two finalists and this is while Farrell was taking course work to pass the state certification for this position. Do they actually believe that anyone had a ghost of a chance to get that position - of course not. This position was in the bag for Farrell. Also, what is the possibility that all 20 candidates did not have the qualifications for this position - I'll tell you - no way. I would love to look at those resumes myself and show up Taymore as the fraud she is.
Did you hear the comment by Ms Driscoll when she said that Farrell would bring her teaching and education experience to the job - which would be so unusual for this type of position. Ms. Driscoll never lets us down to show her delusional nature - how this person was ever elected to the Committee defies logic!
Ms. Drsicoll -the reason why this type of experience is unusual in this type of position is - because it is not relevant or vital to the work that the business manager needs to have as expertise. But this is too profound for Ms. Driscoll and her associates to understand.
With all the chaos going on at the high school and the introduction of competency learning system to be implemented, now is not the time to be changing our senior management team. They will now need to go out and post the position and install a temporary principal - obviously this person will not be committed since they won't have "skin in the game" as a temporary employee. If they eventually promote from within - this will cause a chain reaction of vacancies.
Forgot to add another tidbit learned at their meeting last evening. Because of her lack of experience , Ms. Taymore has already arranged to have the following people provide assistance to her: (1) city CFO, (2) CFO's assistant, (3) our current consultant who is currently working on the budget for the schools, and (4)Ms. Taymore herself. With all this help needed for Ms.Farrell to perform her job, she will still be getting $134,00 per year - as Ms. Tayore stated - this will be a lateral move for her.
Talk about corruption! People should be outraged about this!
It's quite possible that They (our Melrose mobsters) already know MF will fail at this new post, just as she did as principal, and they simply don't care. They will throw a lot of money at her until she reaches her retirement age (probably in next year or so), at which point the real person they've been priming this position will step in, MD herself (and the angels in her head). After all, MD and MF were together at the recent MASSBO Conference. This is all RD's grand incompetent scheme to move all the pieces on the chess board so that he has total control of everything. He is reacting and plotting like the megalomaniac nutjob he's morphed into. Each new revelation and crisis results in even crazier schemes. The kids/taxpayers mean absolutely nothing except that they will pay (and are paying already) the full price for his evil and incompetent machinations. Just wait until the full impact of the looming lawsuits hit home....
If RD were to face an election challenge today, even Dumbo the Elephant would win. He had pretty poor political capital in November, and he is getting close to bottom-dweller now.
RobbieKingpinAngiullo, DoucheBagmanRusso, WhiteyVanC, JohnnyCementMixer$henna, MortyFreeLunch, MadgeMoonbat, CynCyn, and the rest of the Ell Pond Gang may find themselves taking wardrobe lessons (orange being their new color) from EddietheSuit if they keep barging down this crazed path of theirs. The unfolding chaos becomes more incredible with each new day. Round 'em up, Chief!
Now this is not a fake search for business manager, this is blowing steam up our ying yangs here. They're trying to say the right thing in public, but you know what, they already dropped the ball. Farrell, is she a really business manager? I thought she was a principle. How do you go from principle to business manager? Very simple. Mayor Dolan and our superintendent Taymor, must think that we're a bunch of nuts here. I guess everything is going to continue to be top secret. Or it is, under the new public records law. I think that the one thing that I would say, things are going downhill quick. Maybe the big question will become, is our superintendent going to get fired or is she going to resign? Why do I say that? Very easy, why would you hire a business manager that's not even certified to do it yet, or licensed whatever way you want to put it. Money is tight. I think one piece of advice that i would give to all of you, email every member on the school committee, that includes the mayor, and everybody on the board of alderman or just call them all. I hope in hell that we are not going to pay her the same salary that she was getting for being the principle, it should be less. Seems to me, Margaret Driscoll has dodged that question. How come? Has the deal already been put together, on what she will get paid? She'll be learning on the job. How come we're not talking about how much she will be paid? Very simple, more secrecy here, to a citizen puts a public records request in to see what her contract is as business manager. That's talking without her certification or however you want to put it. It's pretty shameful that they are doing a search but from what we're reading, that doesnt seem to be the case. I would think that they're not using her, to fill that position until they find somebody else, that would be a total embarrassment. To not only the city, but to mayor dolan, our superintendent and the school committee. But maybe all the votes are there and she will be the new business manager. The big question will become, why aren't we talking about what this position pays? I hope it aint a position where she goes from principle to business manager, that doesn't make sense to me. She doesn't have the credentials to do the job. So what the hells going on here? Oh yeah some of you are going to get nervous, and you should, because people are going to be talking about this, and the sad thing about the whole thing, you're going to lose their trust. So for you elected officials, how about telling the truth. And our superintendent, our superintendent should tell us that the search is over. That's Farrell our former principle of the highschool. But then again, maybe this is a way to get rid of our superintendent of the melrose public school system. I don't know about you folks, but a lot of these public officials and our mayor even the board of alderman are definitely hearing from the citizens of melrose. Some of them look beat up, and what do I mean by that? I think in simple language, they figured, we are realizing what they are doing to us and we are not going to take it anymore because we are signing off. It's very simple, it's very easy to sound off when you are talking to politicians. So the big question here tonight is, how much are they going to be paying our new business manager to do this job, with no experience? And bigger question becomes, are they paying for her classes so she can get the qualifications? And how much is it costing us all as tax payers. The reason I ask, they publicly havent told us. That she is doing this all on her own, at her own expense. It is our business, we have to all remember, our mayor keeps on saying not one more penny for the Melrose public school systems. I guess my closing words, this is my opinion as a tax payer, were all entitled to an opinion, right or wrong.
"You are absolutely correct about Margaret Driscoll wanting the Business Manager position - I know for a fact that she has completed her course work which will qualify her for this position. Farrell is only there to fill the gap until Margaret is ready to assume that position - which may be 1-2 years at most. Driscoll has been smooching with all the mothers groups, elementary parents, building up a reputation as a education expert. Driscoll will then come in and pick up her $130,000 plus salary and remain for many, many years. Meanwhile, Farrell will stay until she is ready to retire. During this time - the school administration will play musical chairs - and the students will suffer from constant staff turnover with no sanity in short and long term planning. What a legacy for our school system!"
This all hinges on when Margaret's Texas-sized ego allows her to step down from her gavel-wielding position and then either take the mandatory year away from her "connected" roles, as per the State Ethics laws, or try to game the system somehow with an Uncle Dave-strongarmed waiver. Meanwhile, as stated, there is (not future tense) zero sanity in short- or long-term planning. It is only about fulfilling the crazy political and personal agendas of the corrupt officials using our children as their political patronage footballs. Beyond disgusting! MD as business manager is even more of a threat down the road than all the harm from the current and recent craziness. The Dolanites should be ashamed but that won't happen because it requires a conscience. Can't blame Zika for that! What a disaster.
NOT GOOD NEWS.
All I can say about this matter is - get ready for those "deer in the headlights" look from Farrell when she is questioned about school finances!Again, just as she had to do with Jay Picone, Taymore will need to step in to explain the financial transactions for her. Same old, same old! I got a kick out of hearing John McLaughlin tell us at the last school committee meeting that out of the 4 supers he has met, Taymore was the most competent - this tells me more about John than it does about Taymore! Pathetic!
In which one of McLaughlin's major victories in Melrose did he crush you to get you so upset? The haters love to hate when good things happen in Melrose. Was it the Middle School debt exclusion victory, the new fields at MHS, or the grand daddy of all time for the haters, the Mayors $25,000 raise?
And you think he is doing all this trumpeting for Dolan for nothing? Use your head, he's an insurance broker. The Mayor runs a city with a multimillion dollar inventory of autos, equipment and structures. Get it?