The only thing the School Committee members must do now is to admit they failed to protect children. They need to resign.
With the exception of the two new members. Ed Oconnel and Liz Deselm. The jury is still out as to whether they will do right by the students and parents of Melrose.
The verdict is in on the rest of the SC members: They were complicit in permitting this to happen and by supporting the McCarthyist Norms that are in direct conflict with School Committee member responsibilities, their oath of office and fiduciary responsibilities to the Melrose community.
No way will any of them will resign. They're all too arrogant.
Overheard Driscoll talking recently. On their planet, they are the victims here.
Yes, RD, MD, CC, JD all by rights should resign. All were complicit in the superintendent's shameful and illegal actions. The city solicitor should be brought before the Board of Bar Overseers for his shameful and failed legal advice that led to such serious findings against the district for, among other things, running a sham investigation that caused more harm to children, further victimized the boy who was humiliated by the 8th grade teacher, and helping the committee craft and defend the indefensible Norms, and disgraceful conduct of this committee. Their actions now to railroad a quickie shotgun swearing-in of their handpicked replacement only prove their willingness to do whatever is expedient. Given the severity of the findings against all of them (and they were a da#ning indictment of ALL of them), you would think they'd want to be extremely careful to do everything since then in the most proper way. Nope. Not this crew. They have total contempt for what's right, even when they know they are in the wrong and it has been determined and proven by United States attorneys in the Office of civil rights. Shame on them and shame on all who support them.
Yes, if these were honorable and decent people, that would be the reasonable response that the community would have a right to expect. The OCR findings document really lays it out when it demonstrates how this administration, with the botch-job "legal advice" from the CS and hired guns, purposely violated all kinds of laws and policies for the whole year and a half after the disgusting and illegal conduct of the teacher.
Read it, folks!
http://melroseschools.com/administration/presentations/ocr/
If you claim to care about the truth, don't pretend you understand just from reading the posts online or the media coverage. Take 5 minutes and read even just this one Findings document. It says it all. These crimes and violations occurred over a long period and continue still. In fact the retaliatory conduct is in overtime mode, especially seeing as how many of the offenders have deep anger management issues to start with and after the shocking announcement this week.
Now they have "appointed" one of the chief offenders in charge of further investigations (the same one who did the botch job!), as if they are taunting and giving the finger to the Office of Civil Rights.
CKK is absolutely correct that the only first step is a resignation, and then several others
What's happening is now under the scrutiny of the federal government (and rightly so) and will be affecting our community (and budget) for a very long time, so the catfight over who will fill a SC seat should not be the sole focus of your 48-hour outrage if you actually care about the truth and well-being of our students and the soul of our community, as one poster put it so aptly. (The fake budget process and engineered "crisis" is totally derailed at this point, which may point out how fake it was from the start.) This was and is not a trivial "misconstrued comment" spurred on by a "zealot" as is so hideously being smeared by those who are trying do damage control (sadly nearly all local Democrats bringing shame on the party). Their Public Relations firm Guilfoil can't wash away the shame that Taymore and Dolan and Driscoll and Thorp (she's still culpable!) and Constantine and Casatelli and Dugan and White-Lambright have brought down on our Melrose community.
It's important to understand that the issues described in the OCR Findings document of January 2016 are not about one isolated incident. The district has been found guilty of cultural/racial incompetence, with a pattern of ignorant and willfully wrong actions, including purposeful obstruction of investigations. This isn't a matter of hyper-sensitivity around racial issues. This is about an administration that has been operating in an abusive and backwards manner comprehensively. That is still occurring.
Unfortunately the "Resolution" is only skin-deep in what is now required of the district, although it will irritate those in charge for a long time with all the hoops that must be navigated. There are worse consequences that these arrogant types have failed to acknowledge as a real possibility for failure to comply with the very reasonable and mild Resolution.
What happened in Melrose in April of 2014 is shocking. What has happened since is many times more disturbing in its long-term implications. The silver lining is that finally there might be a real conversation in the community about what needs to happen for there to be real and meaningful cultural proficiency, not just the fake PC kind that too many of our local organizations pretend at.
I agree that reading the Findings should be required of all Melrose citizens:
http://melroseschools.com/administration/presentations/ocr/
From the sounds of it, Melrose has already forgotten that their panties were in a knot a couple of days ago and moved onto the next sports event or drinking party.
Melrose Student Lives Matter (all Melrose students, not just Farrell's or Conway's pets), however, and some of us are not going to let the real issues disappear.
I agree the school committee members need to resign and let new people in.
Under the sc, the superintendent violated federal laws and fought any accountability or remedy with district funds. The sc members are the direct supervisors of the superintendent.The school committee allowed the violations and the cover-up and so is also responsible. Please don't victimize the children again by dragging this out. Resign NOW. Thank you.
My family stands in solidarity with Mrs. Kourkoumelis and all those now calling not only for Superintendent Taymore, but also the standing members (not the 2 new ones) of the School Committee to resign. They have all been part of the flagrant disregard for federal and local laws. They have been found guilty of a disgraceful abuse of power. They are also guilty of obvious misspending of public tax dollars to defend what has been proven to be indefensible violation of laws. Their "budget" is a sham, as is their entire agenda of actions. The real actions have been taking place in secret. These individuals are all complicit in unethical conduct that is clearly in violation of their oath of office.
Of course they should all resign. In any company if this happened management would be terminated. But where are all the citizens that voted "no" on the override? Seemed like there were hordes of them. They sent a serious vote of no faith in the SC and the superintendent and the government. Everyone seems to agree that how the OCR investigation was handled was shameful. But is there a petition to sign to make these resignations happen? What are the steps? Carrie took the first one. Most likely all people will do is complain on this site, complain to their friends, maybe write a letter to the paper and then go back to their coffee.
So why don't all you outraged and concerned parents organize and march on city hall? You don't even show up for SC meetings.
Keep your eye on the web page with SC info. The tab for "meet the school committee" is not there, so I am sure they are adding the new member.
Its a difficult situation where many Melrose citizens actually know the SC members personally, work together, children are in school together, play on sports teams. It's hard to march and call for your neighbors resignation. Most citizens clearly prefer to do it in private, in the voting booth. That's why the SC and the Mayor (who sits on the SCO) should have done the right thing and called for the superintendent's resignation. Make a statement that the City of Melrose will not support discrimination and cover-ups and legal fees and gross mismanagement. Carrie resigned because she was the single voice pushing for consequences and was disgusted that not one other SC member would do the right thing. I applaud her refusing to compromise her principles.
The City of Melrose now has already supported "discrimination and cover-ups and legal fees and gross mismanagement." The community already stood by and let them do so.
Any such statement as you suggest they make now is hollow. The only sincere statement they can make after supporting those who violated civil rights laws is to resign. That would be indicate their recognition they did wrong. Anything less is just spin control.
Someone out there must know: is Taymore getting close to any kind of mandatory retirement age? I believe she is about 67 years old at this point. I wholeheartedly agree with posters calling for her resignation - she is utterly despicable and incompetent - but I am wondering if the passage of time will soon provide new leadership. If and when that time comes, we the public cannot permit this type of hiring mistake to be made again.
Should have listened to CK. She did her homework and knew of the shenanigans going on in Bedford and Malden. The current SC members need to do their jobs.
This wasn't a "hiring mistake." It was the MEF lobbying group and the Sycophants of Melrose Machine (Eric Heath, Gail I, MBMM, attack dog MG, et al) working directly with Jessica, Margaret, Kristin & Margaret, Don bombarding the committee with their Talking Points mindless letters to force-feed that candidate, and only that candidate down the throats of the community, even when there was a much more qualified individual ready and willing to take the helm, AGAIN (Dr. James Kelleher, and then before that, the distinguished and eminently qualified Mark Kaufman, both of whom were voted down in favor of the unqualified charlatans that got the job instead).
And until the SC is forced from office, there is a virtual guarantee that only the bottom of the barrel candidates will even be applying, let alone be selected (as is a guarantee for the biz mismanager--puppet of Patrick DR--no matter whom is chosen).
Apparently the community of Melrose wants and maybe deserves the awful "leadership" it has had because it sits back and does nothing year after miserable year.
Time to reboot the schools. They won't turn around until administration and school committee turn over.
I applaud all of the sitting members of the SC for honoring the commitments they all made to the voters of Melrose. They all ran honest campaigns and are serving the students and citizens of Melrose to the best of their abilities as they promised they would when they were sworn in.
So when are we scheduled to get rid of Taymore? Is she appointed for life, as Supreme Court Justices are, or is there end in sight to her disgraceful tenure as Superintendent? Anyone know the answer?
Of course she should resign, and of course the School Committee should fire her. But we all know that won't happen.
LOL - assuming this is sarcastic. Funniest thing I've read on this site in weeks!
As I recall, Tafla VuVu, they didn't tell us when they ran that they would violate the civil rights of students and deceive the public about it - and that they would pay legal fees for these transgressions secretly with lack of transparency! I guess then that they did NOT run honest campaigns and that they are NOT serving the students and the citizens well as a result. The reason we all know this - is because of all the negative press these events have generated and the negative impact it has had in our school community and city.
