I a city of approx. 26,000. Why do we have neighborhood elementary schools. I mean, we pack all middle schooled into one building, as well as high schoolers. We maintain at least 4 other aging buildings for elementary education. Why not build a central elementary school, where all students can learn, get to know people from others neighborhoods, ect? Just a thought....
A central elementary school for all grades runs about $100,000,000. One Melrose can get it passed. Lets go for it!
We built a new middle school for considerably less, and there are substantial funds available from the state and feds.
Seems to me that a central elementary school would build a sense of community and diversity sooner in a child. You know. One Melrose, One Future. Just a thought for reasonable dialogue
Please, wait ‘til I croak (which won’t be all THAT long) to do this! 😆
Jesus H. Christ! It took two whole days to confirm I made the right decision.
Traditionally, the reason for the number of schools at given grade bands was what was considered an appropriate walking distance (in inclement weather) at the relevant ages. These days, it's much rarer for kids to be walking - let alone alone! - than it used to be. But that's why one saw distribution of schools as they developed in many places, Melrose hardly being unique in that regard.
As a practical matter, what grew up around that were several other layers of logistical infrastructure that required staging: school bus ballet, as it were, meals (and their supply, making and disposition), recreation and sports spaces and schedules, performing arts spaces and schedules, et cet.
A different approach: Malden made a strategic set of decisions to invest in building new schools in locations that straddled old neighborhood divides, then selling off old properties for redevelopment. So it became Quincy North.
If you are listening to this and thinking to yourself. This could never work at my school. You don't know MY principal. It's hopeless. I've already done everything I can do, then quite frankly, it's probably time to go work somewhere else. I really hate working for my principal and it is not getting better.
There's a lot schools out there and many, if not most, of them are wonderful places to teach and learn. There are thousands of principals out there who are inspiring and supportive and care about their kids and teachers.
Don't assume that it's terrible everywhere else so you might as well stay where you're at. There are places where you can love teaching again.
Parents are not satisfied with the middle school and high school principals either. More parents are upset about the two vice principals. They feel they are not the correct fit for the school. Now that the override passed this should be the time to hire new and get rid of the unsatisfied administration.
If Taymore really wants to do something, she'll find a way. If she don't, she'll find an excuse.
Why on earth would anyone with half a brain expect Paymore to replace poor administrators with better ones? She is abysmal herself and she doesn't want anyone decent here. Smart, well-educated professionals who are truly interested in being part of a quality education team and process steer clear of Melrose and have for a number of years, for reasons that should be obvious to all. Melrose has atrocious administrators, starting at the top. If there is a decent one among them, that would be news, because word on the street is that they all $uck. Some are worse than others, but there really isn't a single one that would be considered top drawer in any district that still has quality standards. There may still be some good educators, but most of the good ones have left, leaving Cyndy to hire a team of the bottom dwellers and/or complete rookies who will take orders and don't know enough to challenge her or the rest of the boobs in charge of each school.
The current crop of young parents, along with the diehard apologists of secondary students and grads who should know better but refuse to grasp the glaring truth, need to justify their bad choice of Melrose and as a result explain away all the deficiencies with silly sycophant rationale. Sure it's just all so great. Believe it at your own children's peril. And give them more millions while you're at it, because surely that means the idiots in charge will hire great people, right? WRONG. But at least all those NoOneMelrose zealots can all feel like they're part of their own awesome club. When their brats are puking vats of vodka and BudLite up in the Mt.Hood woods a few years from now and NOT getting into decent colleges or winning any positions on sports teams let alone scholarships, these same zealot, self-absorbed parents will be too consumed with their failing portfolios and skyhigh mortgages/real estate taxes/water&sewer rates to care any more whether their equally entitled and poorly educated geniuses went to ECamp or not, or whether they got their first choice of kindergarten or whether a bunch of the best and brightest bailed for other districts or private schools. But for now they are still deluded into believing the Disney rendition, thinking this is a legitimate education system being overseen by a responsible school committee that in turn is being counter-balanced by a serious aldermanic board that always does due diligence.
Because this is, by far, the worst idea in the world. Our small neighborhood elementary schools are one of the best things about this town. But, just to play out this stupid idea, lets ask a few questions. Where would this school go? How would we pay for it? What would we do with the other vacant schools (condos?)? How much would it cost to bus all of our kids to this school?
I’m sure an audit will expose the funding shell game being played for the school.
Now that the override passed this should be the time to hire new and get rid of the unsatisfied administration.
A full forensic audit would uncover all manner of financial monstrosities perpetrated by this utterly debauched city governance and management. But ordering and funding such an audit won't happen by those currently in power, or from the looks of it, any of those go-along types putting in their hats to run in the fall. Further, the idiotic Melrose public, most explicitly those in the "OneM" constituency (Melrose Ed Foundation, etc.) are armed to the teeth and will viciously protect their status quo because they are all so heavily invested in it.
Untangling that rathole of a mentality will take something major that explodes or implodes, something that could easily happen given the massive system of corruption and incompetence they are all protecting so fiercely. Things happen, whether They like it or not. But then again they seem able to teflon their way through it because of the collusion by a willfully negligent and ignorant bunch of the Melrose voters.
OCR happened, as a perfect storm of a situation, where gross racism (that is in fact even worse now and can factually be proven as such) combined with gross incompetence and gross corruption led to a student (and all those who witnessed the travesty) was marred when the head of the teachers' union (an 8th-grade history teacher!) told her only black student to "go back to the plantation" (among other hideous things she did with a long history of inexcusable conduct). The administration worked quickly (but incompetently) to hide the situation and inflict more harm on the student and his classmates. Eventually the United States Office of Civil Rights came down with a truly ****ing document of Findings that portrayed a pervasive environment of racial hostility in the school district. Many in the region wrote and spoke about this very dark, if you will, state of affairs in Melrose, though Melrose itself buried its collective ONEMelrose head farther and farther you know where, with even its most PC types claiming it was just a "misconstrual" (one of the notable Temple sisters/musician), just a little tempest in a teapot (like all the other egregious instances of official misconduct the PC cabal here has worked hard to bury). This OCR incident also happened to cost the city huge sums of taxpayer dollars, all buried in inappropriate/illegal line items duly approved by the SC and BOA, with their ever-nodding heads, just like they continue to do every sleepy week here (except of course when the issue of Council vs Alder or 25% mayoral raises rise like infected boils into the public sphere).
Did any individual on the BOA even demonstrate a wrinkled brow when Gerry Mroz revealed a week ago that the school administration (aka super and SC, because they act in perfect harmony without a hint of due diligence of actual oversight, now headed by a convicted felon who stole from old people) lied overtly over the last many years about "school security," charging over $5 million fraudulently to that line item. This is, by the way, something Mr. M has been bringing to their (and our) attention for many years and which he finally had confirmed in Taymore's "oops my bad" admission to his formal public records request and which he spoke multiple times about to both the SC and BOA in the last couple of weeks. Predictably there was nary a nod or even barest of acknowledgment to that $5 MILLION DOLLAR "ERROR" from either the School Committee or BOA (Council, powwow or whatever they think would be most PC this week). $5 Million Dollars in taxpayer monies misrepresented in the fully approved budgets. Gee that number has a familiar ring to it....
You can watch it here if you actually care (beginning of the June 3 BOA mtg):
https://vimeo.com/340118680
You can also see Lipper-G try (2 times this week) to shut down Mr. M, claiming only discussions around the "budget" (which this most certainly was) were allowed. She is a real piece of work, totally now in line with the rest of the disgusting cabal.
Clean the swamp with your white trash hires.