Ms. Laurie Greenwood is currently the STEM director at Melrose High. She is an amazing teacher and there is no doubt she is qualified for the position of an administrator, however, she has not performed very well recently. She is better in the classroom and many MHS students miss Mr. Jon Morris, former head of STEM at MHS, who was not asked to come back for this school year. Ms. Greenwood has done little to advance the STEM program besides running the STEM Pathway. She has been non-communicative and I believe she will not benefit the STEM program at all. Mr. Jon Morris, on the other hand, was very proactive and always there for his students and teachers, letting students know about internship or job opportunities or community service; and doing everything he could to further the STEM program.

Superintendent has brought in the worst hiring in the past 5 years, all for the money. Do we not care about our children enough to ensure they are given the very best in school. Too much union power doesn't just ensure that failing teachers remain in post. Unreformed union power means one size fits all: defend everyone, no matter how much they betray our children. Children are our future and they deserve the very best.

In three years Taymore took a strength at MHS, the math department, ans sent it into a death spiral. Greenwood was the best AP Calc teacher in the building. More 5's on AP exams than Peterson, who was also excellent. This years AP teacher isn't getting the job done, Peterson's gone and Greenwood sits in an office all day while a mediocre teacher tries to fill her shoes. Greenwood never should have been given the job if MHS didn't have a teacher capable of replacing her ready to step in. Horrible decisions by Taymore. She has proven herself to be a very poor decision maker. Time to retire.

Thank you so much for saying that! I agree wholeheartedly! We have to do something.

Anyone else miss Jon Morris?

Looking at the decade of math scores, MPS can hardly claim that math was any kind of "high" point anywhere in the district, except under the many and notably successful years with Dr. Peterson and under the steady hand of Jim B (despite having been forced to keep the Mateus disgrace all those years because M was head of the ignoble and failed teacher's union). If Greenwood achieved some success in this regard, that was as much due to the fact that Dr. P was leading the "Saturday classes" and to the add-on of the extra AP training that MHS received a grant to run. The years that Dr. P's classes did not do as well were entirely due to the mismanagement and harassment of Farrell, Taymore, and Cardella in restructuring Dr. P's classes and who was shoved into them regardless of whether they were suitably qualified.

Taymore and the Melrose School Committee/mayor have brought about a steady and continuous decline throughout the district, with most of the qualified teachers having been driven out, including Dr. P who was treated abysmally by this crack administrative team. (She's now very happy in another school, where her students are achieving nearly 100% top scores in every metric. She was treated with reverence by the many hundreds of students who had the excellent fortune of being in her classes at MHS, while simultaneously treated disgracefully by this administration.) Now all that is left are mostly the sub-par and/or totally green teachers and certainly administrators who wouldn't get hired anyplace reputable.

To add to that, the administration and school committee voted to remove several department-head positions, combining, for example, Science and Math, which is patently ridiculous. Both departments needed to be improved, not downgraded by this utterly foolish move. Now both departments have been damaged even further.

MHS students have been given the short end of the district stick for many years now, with the majority of funds being poured into pre-k and elementary education as a way of buying votes and placating the gullible parents of very young students. MHS students deserve so much better than what Melrose has deemed acceptable for them! They continue to find ways of excelling despite being treated so poorly by the powers-that-be, and many manage to achieve remarkable success in spite of the district's many failings. That, however, doesn't mean that they couldn't have done better if they had received an appropriate education.

Melrose used to be a fairly decent school system. Not any more. Too many of the self-deluded parents here now feel compelled to wave their pompoms about anything MPS/MHS as necessary and constant obeisance. They are generally too limited and narrow-minded to understand that decent and functional districts have open discussions about what needs to be improved, as compared with the prevailing dysfunction here. Instead, it's a constant praisefest with the corollary of utter nastiness towards anyone who might have criticisms. These self-deluded parents couch their endless lame remarks in "you get what you put in," "look at all the Harvard and MIT admissions from MHS" (not!) or "you could move" (if one dares to criticize), refusing to consider that their children could be doing so much better if qualified educators and administrators were delivering the appropriate quality education they are paying for as tax payers. They also refuse to consider that for however well they convince themselves their children are doing now, that in fact Melrose students could be doing so much better and be more competitive with those in comparable communities were there any actual accountability in Melrose.

So how bad is the math department exactly? Last year my child had no math teacher most of his 11th grade.

Each year in various schools there are teachers who are hoping to make tenure. This year imparticular we have some really good teachers I hope get to stay on. Unfortunately, there are teachers and employees that need to go that aren't unionized. Why is it, or so it seems, that Taymore tends to keep those who are doing unethical things to others and while letting decent employees go?

Dirty teachers protected by tenure and unions. To be clear, as a nation we are blessed with many incredibly hardworking talented, and dedicated teachers. They're worth much more than they're paid and it's been dispiriting to watch them get blamed for issues beyond their control, for instance, bad policy choices that have led to soaring pension costs in some states. But let's make it clear: there are more than a few teachers who shouldn't be teaching. Just ask their peers. In survey after survey, teachers themselves say that not all of their colleagues should be teaching and that some have tenure who shouldn't. The data bear this out, too, But a small subset of them are startlingly bad, and they should be doing something else for a living.

Listen up, Mrs. Mayor - putting your own house in order is your number 1 priority.

The only legitimate Mayor would have been voted in by those who are registered to vote. A special election is the only way it would have been fair to taxpayers.

GI is a BFF of MD and has been known to praise Paymore Taymore for years. She has also helped coverup all the MPS mistakes. Gail like Rob does not like to be questioned. Like Trump and Dolan, she will never admit a mistake. This does not bode well for the schools! All the mommies shouldn't automatically swallow the superficial bull **** that a female Mayor is so great, if the person is unqualified. Melrose education needs help on so many levels. The SC and MPS ( Taymore, Adams and Sp.Ed. Director) are a disaster. Hoping for leadership by the new SC members. Hope that the new women on the BOA aren't just rubber stampers and show some guts not to go along just to get along. When is the Ward 5 seat ever going to be filled?

Don't count on those so-called Dem feminists now on the BOA to represent civil rights, women's rights, or frankly, just basic American rights. Jen & Kate have already proven their disgusting willingness to be rubber-stamps for the worst values, cheerleading GI into office and smearing with snide insinuations some of the other candidates. Melrose has sunk to new lows, and these women are a part of that downward spiral in a major way.

Almost the entire school administration has turned into a mean girls club, from Lucretia McNasty on down. All that's missing is Sam Hammar replacing Obremski, and we'd have Mean Girls and the Felon.

And Melrose can't figure out why the system is in the toilet and the entire educational community statewide is laughing at us. What I can't figure out is how the so-called "educated professionals" we hear have moved to Melrose have allowed themselves to be so thoroughly snowed by these twits and their co-conspirators, the realtors. I guess they're not as smart as they think they are.

"Almost the entire school administration has turned into a mean girls club, from Lucretia McNasty on down. All that's missing is Sam Hammar replacing Obremski, and we'd have Mean Girls and the Felon.
And Melrose can't figure out why the system is in the toilet and the entire educational community statewide is laughing at us. What I can't figure out is how the so-called "educated professionals" we hear have moved to Melrose have allowed themselves to be so thoroughly snowed by these twits and their co-conspirators, the realtors. I guess they're not as smart as they think they are. "

SO TRUE, sadly. Can't stand Lewis but am thinking seriously of working on his campaign just to stand in the way of yet another of these nasty women getting elected with their sanctimonious and utterly fake claims as protectors of women's rights or any other virtue, for that matter. They are simply opportunistics of a vicious variety, so trendy in today's Melrose, and hurting the very causes they are supposed to be representing. Frightening and utterly revolting.

Watch the SC meeting where Lucretia's true colors showed clearly when she took such offense to the parents who were unhappy with the new lineup for ECC. The nastiness just oozed from every pore. I guess a beyatch is just a beyatch no matter what she's wearing. I keep hoping she'll choke herself on one of those stupid scarfs.

And for those who don't know, "STEM" stands for "Science, Technology, Engineering and Math".

It's always nice to start a topic by defining the terms, especially when they're relatively new.

Superintendent should of been fired by SC not extended and given three long years.