1 - No
2 - No
3 - Yes
4 - Yes
yes no yes yes
Voting no has everything to do with teacher unions. And granted, Melrose and a lot of towns are fortunate to have fairly decent systems but voting yes won't effect us much at all. Voting yes will help some cities withless than satisfactory systems. The unions in these cities DO NOT have the best interest of the children at hand.
There is no such thing as separate but equal. We simply should concentrate on improving the public schools and move away from the charter school concept. Having a more limited version of unions is something that should be considered to give the public schools more flexibility to get the best teachers and remove those that are in the wrong vocation.
Isn't voting for Q2 the ultimate slap in the face to the SC? Rather give the $ to charters than you!
The ONLY reason the MTA is against the Charter schools is they can't collect exherbatant dues. Don't kid yourself. Choices should be left open. Especially in racist Melrose.
MBM didn't take in a asst principal as the Lincoln did. Why you ask when the school qualifies and who couldn't use the extra help? She does want first hand knowledge out from an administrator how incompetent she is. And a huge LIAR, LIAR, LIAR.
ES was so great when it started. Now it's all about the money and nastiness. Amanda's great!!!!!! Dr. J. not a bad person or Mrs. K. but they can be handled too by CT. Hey get some ethics. D. SM. is a complete nasty butch bit¢h. who relishes in firing people. Her employees saying she F**king sucks and if everyone asks who they all says D. She has no personality. ES has gone way down hill. Healthy snacks, nope. Used to be juice, now water, when its even stocked in. Used to be cut up fruit and carrots with dip. Gone are those days. Don't be fooled. It sucks. This is no reflection on lower staff who do the best they can under this crumbling system. Not worth the money.
The public schools have had ample money and infusion of federal and state monies to improve and have failed! That is evident to anyone who knows anything about this situation - charter schools - even by lottery - is a way for some of these kids - and increasing the number of charters - them gives them a better chance at future success.
You only need to look at Lowell, Fitchburg, Lawrence, and Boston to fully grasp the depths of failure to realize that another alternative is needed - sure improve the governance of charter schools - but increase them as an alternative to failed public schools. Better yet - get the unions out of education!
Have all you pro Question 2 people completely forgotten about Chapter 70 and how totally screwed up the formula is? Before you come to me with any more brilliant ideas, fix Chapter 70. Then come talk to me. Anyone who expect the government to properly put together and administer a program like this is an idiot who has learned nothing from history.
Local schools have had their chance. If they haven't improved by now, they never will. Charter schools although far from perfect are at least offering an alternative for parents that can't afford private schools.
I am tired of the you need to accept the Melrose schools for what they are approach. Two hundred + students have voted with their feet and want no part of MPS. The number of families dissatisfied with their local schools are even higher in other communities. This expansion request is so more students can make the choice to leave their failing school system.
All the talk about how charter schools don't accept everyone is actually an argument for YES on Question 2. Charter schools cannot accept everyone right now because there aren't enough seats available. Question 2 wants to add more seats.
Look at the public figures that are against Question 2. School Committees, teachers unions, the mayor of Melrose. People that don't want to lose CONTROL over education. It's a power play.
Margaret Driscoll bleats about "no local oversight." Ha. Ha. You mean no Margaret Driscoll oversight.
Sorry. Not everybody wants you, your reprehensible norms, your super Taymore or the self-appointed education expert involved with their child's education.
OAN, I hope MPS isn't accepting money from the state for the homeschooled children. Pretending they are still in MPS because they come in for a few days MCAS testing. Accurate records need to kept.
Vote YES on all the questions. Thank You!
Why would anyone still vote no? For every single reason listed in this thread, the main one being:
Because there is no way to fund all these new Charter schools without
further damaging the public schools that still have to serve the children who don't win the lottery or have needs that cannot be met by Charter Schools.
Come up with an economic plan that addresses all of these factors and then ask for an increase in Charters.
Just received my 10th email this week from the desperate union president- begging for more people to come and knock on doors, make phone calls (my union dues are now paying for the "pizza and drinks" that will sustain the phone bank participants), and stand outside with signs to defeat Question 2. You can feel her sweaty forehead through the computer. These people are terrified. Anything that terrifies the union to its very core has to be a good thing. Voting yes, because I am sick of being part of the problem. I love people who try to tell me that the funding model is "flawed". I cannot begin to count the number of things that are flawed in financing public education. For 30 years, I have watched the public schools as they are allowed to waste, waste, and waste some more, but then they want to call out the funding model because it takes money away from them. Maybe they should stop wasting what they have, and they could provide for their students and keep people from wanting more charter options.
Couldn't agree more with previous poster. If the 2 million that Melrose has to pay for its Mystic Valley 220 (±) students were spent locally (which doesn't figure in the Chapter 70 funds the district still collects), why should anyone believe that this utterly corrupt and incompetent administration would have spent it correctly and for the best interests of the students? Answer: it is virtually a guarantee that the MPS would have spent the funds in a way that few would think was responsible, that is if we ever got to see the true accountability that in fact does not exist under this school committee, mayor, BOA and administration. Accountability is just a mirage here. It's all smoke and mirrors, hiding the corruption and rank incompetence. Voting Yes.
And once again the conversation returns back to Melrose. It's a State of MA vote. Decision doesn't affect Melrose at all. We are at the cap.
Vote yes if:
- You are OK with ZERO control over how much and where your tax money is spent
by Charter Schools
- Have blind-faith in those schools and schools to come
- Have certainty that Charter Schools are "saving urban children from a life
of poverty"
- Have absolutely no concern about your state income tax going up
Vote No if:
- You would like to see the entire funding model reviewed
- You would like the entrance (lottery) model reviewed
- You want more Charter "innovation" passed on to public schools
- Have some uncertainty about whether or not Charters actually help "urban
children in poverty" over the long-term
- Enjoy some level of control over your tax dollars (both income and property).
Thanks for that. Unfortunately, this is the foolishness typical of the Yes on 2 supporters:
I heard the Melrose school committee voted to spend about $5,000,000 just to build 4 kindergarten classrooms. They will hold fewer than 100 students. They already spend about $12,000 each year on those students-- the same amount we pay the charter school. The state pays for the buildings separately for the charter schools. We don't pay for them. We save $5,000,000.
If all new incoming students go to Melrose public instead of the charter, more classrooms would have to be built at $50,000 per student prices and Melrose would still have to pay $12,000 to educate each of them. It's far cheaper sending them to the charter.
For crying out loud, are you not listening? Melrose is at it's cap. We can't send them to a charter. But since Question 2 is a statewide question, if it passes we'll be paying for it anyway.
It does nobody any good to ignore facts that don't fit your agenda.
Why don't you go check with the City of Melrose. Yes, we are almost at the internal cap on how many students from the City can attend the Charter with reimbursement from the City. The point is giving MV more students won't impact Melrose in any significant way. It will have a much bigger impact on cities and towns without Charters already.
I think that this is a very good discussion regarding this ballot question, and although I feel that there are good points being made for either vote, I'm sorry to say that the deciding factor for me is that if the teacher's union is against it, I'm for it.
So you're going to cast your ballot not based on the merits but on who's for or against it? That's truly frightening.
Not Hoover. Beebe, which absolutely should have been used to solve this space problem--or the Franklin--for Melrose students instead of this new spending scheme (and the $200,000/year that the district gets for rent is another whole scam since we are paying utilities, snow removal, etc. and this building--and Ripley--were supposedly saved for our own students to use; and no, it's not about SmartBoards either, as RD claimed). And yes, stupidity in action once again. Mayor is tossing some vote-getting goodies to the Horace Mann by committing at least $1.5 million in "renovations" for that school in this new bonding bundle (only the first $400,000 for the "design" work bonded so far--what a boondoggle for this patronage fake-bid "process"). That Horace Mann project was never included in what the "public hearing" last May (you know, that trumped-up 8 am Margaret Driscoll/MEF special, with only canned questions/answers allowed). There has been zero public process around this newly proposed and quickie approved Horace Mann boondoggle, just another bunch of hooey (amplified by the power-abusing, restraining-order principal who insisted that "security" is the big issue there, so that new entryways simply had to be created immediately--probably jealous of Jenny Corduck's newly fashioned Hoover digs to match her miniskirts and window treatments). Can't worry about those silly members of the public seeking a legitimate public process when "security" is at stake. Denise Gaffney (city planner) admitted under questioning that the Horace Mann part of this new bond is at least (!) a third of the cost. That was absolutely never part of what was proposed last spring, and it should not have been allowed in this current bonding quickie vote that just went down (if the BOA had any backbone in their oversight role, which it obviously does not have, since they're more worried about politics than their fiduciary responsibilities).
The Franklin would have been the other totally sensible solution, since there is only one classroom's worth of students needing services according to Title 1. They could have been moved into the Beebe (that currently houses special needs students from SEEM). Instead, Taymore has converted the whole ECC into an "inclusive" school which means that basically every pre-school student is in a program designed for those with special needs, with far more staff and expensive accommodations than is required for a population of general students. The taxpayers are only obligated to be paying for that handful of students, and yet now the whole thing has become a Boutique Preschool, with ridiculous tuition for parents and using fancy renovated space that is needed for the regular population, making it ideal for a kindergarten overflow space. Instead of using the space we already have for this vague and probably temporary elementary enrollment bubble, we are now going to have to pay $4.5 million (and up, since they don't really know the upward limits of this boondoggle project), once again screwing secondary education and focusing resources in the wrong place. The ECC used to be a district money-maker, but not any more.
Bottom Line: RD and MEF are in the business of buying votes from the gullible Birth to Five group, meaning that the Designer ECC matters a whole lot more than accountability to the taxpaying public who must now foot the bill for yet another stupidly conceived many-million-dollar project, once again catering to the parents of the "babies" and leaving the high school without appropriate staff, cutting key department chair positions, etc. (RD threw some vote-getting crumbs at the MHS parents with the "Learning Commons" boondoggle, a stupidly conceived $5.3 million-dollar boondoggle. As anyone who looks beyond the surface will find, those $6.6-million-dollar Science Labs did absolutely nothing to improve the district's Science scores, speaking of badly conceived and executed boondoggles.)
Trying to post anything about the bigger picture is futile on this Board. It always comes back to complaints about Melrose. There are many, many towns and cities in MA. Many have high-functioning school districts and teacher unions. Many do not.
Voting yes is not going to impact teacher unions in any significant way - and it certainly will do absolutely NOTHING in Melrose. Haven't you read the 99 other posts?
First of all Resident, you got it backwards. What the poster actually said was "I'm sorry to say that the deciding factor for me is that if the teacher's union is against it, I'm for it."
Secondly, the poster who said that it is frightening that you would cast your ballot based on what someone else's position is, rather than on the facts of the issue is absolutely correct. That's not critical thinking. It's intellectual laziness of the worst kind, absolutely typical of the average Melrose voter, and a total abdication of your civic responsibility.
I'm voting yes not because of what anyone else supports or doesn't support, not because I think the SC is a bunch of ignorant morons, and not because I think the Mayor is a disgusting megalomaniac, but because I think it's the right thing to do.
Oh - you mean those same Melrose voters who year after year elect the same gaggle of morons to the SC, the same feckless GIC-grabbing slime to the B of A, and the same megalomaniacal fraud as Mayor? Those voters?
Yup. The same voters who continue to vote in people who support $6.5 million science labs that have done nothing to improve science scores, $5.3 million learning commons (when someone figures out what that is actually supposed to do, please let me know), and now $4.5 for trailers and "security" upgrades to the worst school in the city. $16.3 million totally wasted, and for what? To buy votes from the ignorant lemmings that make up most of the Melrose voting public.
I'm voting Yes on 4 because that sanctimonious twit Margaret Driscoll had the nerve to post that the Melrose SC was against 4 like that's something to be proud of.
What's the SC stance on #3? They like citizens to pay more so it's probably Yes. Voting No.
Yes on 2 all the way.
Ha - thanks for making my point. Melrose taxpayers voted for the Middle School renovations. Like it or not, Melrose taxpayers elected the mayor, and the SC who make the decisions on the bonds.
No one mentioned using schools for free for personal events. The students in Melrose schools that play sports use the gymnasiums and do not pay a fee to use their own gymnasium.
Melrose Rec is a separate entity and not a "school". In fact students from MV, and every other school are welcome to play any Melrose Rec sports, in the gym and on the fields if they live in Melrose.
Not a single person in Melrose had or will have a say in anything that is purchased or built by MV, yet their tax dollars pay for a portion of everything - to the tune of 2.2 million a year. That is the distinction. Charging Melrose to swim hardly seems "collaborative".
Looking at the Melrose Rec Guide to Programs:
Middle School Basketball complete with tryouts
Are these not the official team(s) of the middle school?
I have been told by the rec dept itself that part of the high price to play $385 for boys and $415 for girls is because they have to pay to use the school gym in Melrose.
Was only interested in boys but why is girls more? Someone else can fight that battle.
MV didn't take $2 million from Melrose to build a pool but true, they did build a gym & pool because they didn't have a gym. No gym whatsoever.
Do they need a pool? I don't know. Malden HS has one. The vocational school in Wakefield has one. If Melrose could have found a better deal hopefully they'd take it. Should MV let Melrose & the other sending districts use it for free? Probably.
For the record, although I vote, I do not feel that the school committee and the choices it makes represents my family or my family's interests.
The trickle down effect of hiring Taymore and it's ripple effects such as having a business manager-in-training, a gym teacher for principal, a union that seems to only protect the ones it shouldn't & so much more is alienating. I have older children and it feels like every day, there is a new bad decision being made.
I didn't know about the Northeast pool closing. My children took swimming there.
The cost of the MV pool should be somewhere in their annual report. One of the reports from the year it was built. They don't "charge back" the city of Melrose. They get the per pupil expenditures and allocate them.
I have no idea how the Northeast pool came to be. It was built before my time and probably before yours. I do know that there have been major changes by the state and the federal government to vocational training education over the years so I wouldn't feel comfortable speculating.
To your point about vocational elected officials, a more under the radar group, I have yet to see. Sure, they're on the ballot but I don't think too many voters pay attention to them. One of the people running right now seems to have much to say but I don't think this is usually the case. It seems like there are issues at that school too if he is right.
Saw a news article today stating that the reimbursement rate the state pays back to the towns for charter students is going to be 63%. That does it for me. Voting No.
do not listen to these people. they are wrong.vote no on number 2.you dont need these schools...charter schools are a joke.they will take money away from public schools...listen people you only get out of school what you put into school.go to school study hard end of story.......
Tail end of a story filed by Janet Wu on Ch 5. I watched it again, and she quoted a study that said the rate was 63% THIS year, not next. Boston is projecting a shortfall of 25 million next year, as opposed to 19 million this year, or 24% bigger, so I would suppose that same rate can also be applied to Melrose. I believe the figure we pay this year is $2,458,732. If we get a 63% reimbursement, we get $1,549,001 back, a shortfall of $909,731. Next year, if the 24% applies, reimbursement would be reduced a further $218,335. That holds if our in-house cost per pupil stays the same, but it' won't.
Some will tell you that it's a wash - we would have spent that much money on the charter kids if they stayed in the Melrose system, but that's not true. Cost per pupil includes just about everything spent - buildings, staff, supplies, insurance, etc,etc,etc. A lot of those costs don't diminish just because a couple hundred kids opt out.