In the agenda for this week,

"Donna Rosso will present at the 2016 STEM Summit in November. She will be sharing how the ECC has built a successful program to provide age appropriate
curriculum and instruction in Science and Engineering."

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http://melrosecityma.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=2658&Inline=True

This is PRE-SCHOOL, folks, PRE-SCHOOL.

While the rest of the country acknowledges that unregulated outdoor recess and other common-sense measures are critically important to the development of healthy, academically engaged children, this kind of rubbish is what this administration promotes and thinks we should be impressed by.

And then there's this:
"Jenny Corduck, Samantha Leney, David Cyr, and Cindy Amirault will present at the joint MASC/MASS conference in November on “Happy Kids: An Elementary School’s Response to Social Emotional Learning.”"

Pandering, propaganda, BS, all of it. This is the same administration that castigated the parents who circulated a petition asking Taymore not to cut back on kindergarten recess. CT's response during a public meeting was to make menacing remarks towards the parents and condemn them for having circulated a petition, while naturally, the SC sat mute (except for one, Mrs. K) and allowed her to behave so contemptuously.

Oh, and FYI, there is not a single one of those so-called "educators" who seem to understand what a hyphen is, let alone when to use a comma.

Why send your kid to ECC at all then? If you don't like what they are doing, take the kid to the playground.

Sure, for those who have the luxury of staying home with their children, that's a fine answer. Choosing another preschool is another option. The criticism is legitimate, however. This is a publicly funded "boutique" Early Childhood Center, the way it has been billed and created. As such, taxpayers have every right to be analytical and yes, critical. Like so much else that has been mismanaged, this ECC is run by charlatans and paid for by us and the parents who pay exorbitant tuition. The tuition costs have been proven to be far more than those of comparable public preschools, and yet the Melrose families continue to choose to be gullible about this and so many other things. While secondary education continues to get the shaft (when you look past the ribbon-cuttings for poorly engineered/designed "upgrades"), early and primary education is being packed with expensive add-ons in Melrose, all kinds of extra staff (don't listen to the moaning about the red herring paraprofessional "issue"), curriculum, and toys. One big crazy boondoggle!

It's actually the MPS front office and principals who need a lesson on social emotional learning. They should be presenting this to MPS Administrators who rant, rage, intimidate and retaliate whenever a parent or child brings to their attention a case of bullying or educator misconduct. It sure would be nice if they would discontinue their institutionalized policy of filing false police reports and bogus harassment claims against children and parents just because they can't handle hearing the truth about another MPS administrator or teacher violating the law or raging at some child. But this will probably take another OCR investigation focusing on the unlawful treatment of SPED kids and their families, surely to happen in the near future.

"social emotional learning" = another administrative boondoggle and in Melrose a massively ironical label that these administrators should (if they had intelligence and/or a conscience) be embarrassed to utter.

maybe the parents should start getting together and get organized and just push out these administrators...maybe Melrose would be better without a superintendent... Take that salary and use it to pay good teachers

First - the public can't fire admin staff, second, only the superintendent can - and that is the reason why you must hire a competent superintendent. But first you must have a competent school committee which hires the superintendent - and therein lies our problem in Melrose. We have a self serving group on the school committee which is run by a dictatorial, arrogant, self-serving, and demeaning human being, Margaret Driscoll, who knows just enough of the naive elementary student parents to get elected each term. Unless these conditions change - we will continue to have a dysfunctional school system. Dricoll is a disgrace to our school district and it is amazing that she still have the nerve and the audacity to remain in her position given the OCR findings and the continuance of these violations.

There is always someone like you to say don't likewise it go somewhere else. That is not always an option. If you pay you should have some say. If your child is special needs you should have a lot of say. The one missing part is whether you pay or not, children need boundaries. Children need consistency. Children need positive reinforcement. AND children sped or not need consequences for above average bad behavior.