I agree also. It's "nice and all" that there are all of the different programs available, but they are indeed EXTRAcurricular, and as such do not seem like they should be my responsibility to provide for from my tax dollar.
good for Fogarty
These fees are killing us. They aren't fair or excusable. The tiered system is better than the untiered system, but it's still extortionist in nature. This local government has no shame about hitting the taxpayers with exorbitant fees in every direction--water/sewer rates are out of control and wrong (THAT tiered system is not fair or sustainable!), abusive tax assessments that don't comport to reality, trash fees (illegal taxes disguised as fees), double-size pet license fees, student fees: athletics, music, transcripts, photography, E-camp, PTO, MEF; cheering uniforms, international field trips (totally inequitable and not ever made available to METCO or poor students) in the mega amounts, library fundraisers, band fundraisers, mattress orchestra fundraisers, test fees, tutoring charges (on our own because the district can't get the students through the basic college tests with their lousy, subpar teachers and curriculum), student activity fees, parking fees, middle school fundraisers, endless elementary fundraisers, you-name-it, they think it's okay to hit us up. And we're the same population they are hitting up, over and over and over again. They are utterly shameless in their expectations and demands.
yes to previous posters
AND the SC and BOA are always hand-wringing about a lack of money, even though the school system has netted additional millions each of the recent few years that Taymore and SC have demanded them, with zero accountability or near-zero transparency in their processes. It's always a tale of woe about the "mandates" that clearly this district does a poor job of adhering to.
Yet they seem to have plenty of money to send administrators and the Rebecca Mooney types on taxpayer-funded junket trips to four-star hotels or paying for handsome raises across the board for administrators. They seem to have plenty of money to pay a totally unqualified business manager $134,000+ and run a boutique ECC at taxpayer expense (though it is totally not an educational requirement for the district). There seems to be a bottomless pit of "bonds" and other boondoggles for their multi-million-dollar school building projects that still leave MHS students with a certifiable dump of a building and the city with condemn-worthy public safety buildings (fire and police). But the realtors will continue to portray it all as 5-star excellent and oh-so-"quaint"!
The Wakefield Superintendent just submitted a budget that would reduce all user fees by 25%, the first step in a plan to eliminate them entirely. Just sayin'........
Glad Fogarty is finally seeing what parents have been asking for the past few years. Now that he has to dish out the money he see's the problem hmmm. Like he is even going to pay the fee another joke.
We need to keep our students active and involved with sports, music, or other clubs. We have a huge drug problem in this country. Melrose has lost several young adults recently to drug addiction. Let's try to keep them focused and busy doing what they love after school. We need to keep these activities affordable to everyone.
Just look at how much money has been spent in legal fees defending guilty school committee chairs (MD, KT), school administrators (CT, MC, BC (and in rare instances teachers (SH, NB). How many holes has city solicitor VBC dug us into with his disgraceful and unethical behavior? If we could get these lying criminal thugs out of the system, we could save easily two to three hundred thousand dollars a year in legal fees, settlements and increased insurance premiums. Then maybe we could have sharply reduced extracurricular fees.
Melrose has never had a teenager use alcohol or drugs, Linda O'Con-eski told me.
I think she was being sarcastic when she said this....or maybe not.
Ask her what happened to her kid, and where he was when it happened.
Malden were all the Melrose alcoholics went to buy booze. It's under ten years for having liquor stores. So many drinkers in the city.
Not fair to families trying to just make the rent and will not come forward out of shame.
Let's not kid ourselves folks. He's only interested in what it's costing him.
Oh no I have to pay what! As a employee do my children have to pay?
Just as mayor dolan does with the water Sewer budget, The schools use the overcharging of sports fees as a profit center. They use the excess cash to fund their other pet projects. If a truly independent outside auditor audited Melrose City Hall and the school department budget, we would be first page headlines in the Boston Globe. Wholesale corruption going on here, but with a city form of government it is so easy for Dolan to circle the wagons and plug the leaks.