Here is the link to the Mass DOE educator performance evaluation for our teachers and staff in Melrose.

http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/profiles/teacher.aspx?leftNavId=12505&&orgtypecode=5&orgcode=01780000&fycode=2013


Why aren't the school committee, and the people who run MEF, talking about this?

Only about half of our educators have been evaluated as of 2013. Almost 30% of our teachers fall into the "needs improvement" category, which I personally feel is a bit low. It also shows that a whopping 44.3% of non-professional status teachers have been evaluated as "needs improvement". So why haven't these non-tenured teachers been let go? If large numbers of our teaching staff are not performing, why are they still here? No educators in our district were evaluated as exemplary. It also shows that 17% of tenured teachers are in the "needs improvement" category. These are the ones you can never get rid of, and again, I think that number is low.

Why aren't parents outraged about this?

Wow...thanks for informing us of this information! Let's see if this gets further ink in other news venues. The Mayor and school committee are boring us all to death during their meetings....discussing committees, PTOs, site councils, and all the minutia, so that this stuff doesn't come up! The only one of the group who is serious about improving things is Carrie Kourkoumelis.

So, a large percentage of our teaching staff is not performing proficiently, and the only response offered by administrators is to give them all a raise? And the next step is to organize the parents of young kids, and set the wheels in motion for an override campaign? You want to pour more money into a system where the employees are currently not even doing the job they were hired to do? And you want the taxpayers to dig deep into their pockets, and fund this because we can't seem to hire competent principals to make good hires, and manage and supervise the teachers they have. If you can't get your current teachers to perform, and you don't want to fire them, what's the point in giving you more money?

I don't need the DOE to tell me that a lot of teachers in the Melrose School system are "not proficient". I have been hearing and seeing first hand evidence of this for the past 15 years. I love Melrose, but my biggest regret is the school system....if I knew then what I know now, I would have chosen another community.

It's about reaching a tipping point. I hold no hope for any improvement until the tipping point is reached. That means a strong faction of dissidents will have to arise, and make a big enough stink, that change will be unavoidable. Unfortunately, the only voice in the wilderness right now is CKK and a small minority who actually do see the forest through the trees. The majority are either too apathetic to care or too stupid to understand they are being fed a bill of goods. You get the government you deserve, and right now Melrose is getting exactly what it deserves.

Truer words were never spoken, unfortunately. How bad does it have to get, though? It would have appeared a couple of years ago that the district had hit bottom. Seems that a sinkhole developed in the bottom, and now it's just that much worse. And as it's worsened, the officials have grown in arrogance and audacious acts, like this last round of administrative raises in the face of abysmal student achievement results and the worst teacher morale in Melrose probably ever. No one will allow teachers to teach under this current regime, and the charlatans have just grown more cocky. What exactly is the community going to need before it realizes how bad things have become?

MCAS results are in and our administration staff know the results of exams given last spring. It is only a matter of weeks when we will all know these results!

It's a shame that the school committee couldn't wait until these data are known before granting Taymore a raise but something tells me that the timing wasn't accidental. If these current results do not demonstrate a marked improvement from previous years, then we should all join in and request the resignation of Ms. Taymore and a majority of the school committee!