Melrose, a small Massachusetts city, earned an extraordinary distinction when its district Superintendent of Schools landed the Educational Leadership Award (ELA)
Superintendent Paymore has been given the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents (a.k.a. My.A.$.$.) Educational Leadership Award. The intent of the award is to designate superintendents who excel in poor leadership, diminished educational outcomes, and inefficient use of tax dollars. “Previous winners have taken two of three categories but it is rare to find a winner in all three and Ms. PayMore did not disappoint!,” stated Execution Director Scottish Tom-tom. The Superintendent came to the nominating committee with an astounding record of declining student test scores, unprecedented attrition of quality educators, a record-setting 20% of her new replacement hirees scoring in the “needs improvement” category in state-mandated teacher evaluations, and the highest amount of tax dollars being spent on PR and legal fees that do not benefit students of any district in the state. Paymore has even created a permanent budget line item for the new “Department of Spin” (currently occupied by Gilded Spoils PR firm) that offers no courses or educational benefits but does suck “incredible taxes” from the city budget. “Or is that 'tactics'” said Mayor Doughland (whose command of the English language reflects his own dismal record in the Melrose Schools). He seemed positively gleeful about this squandering of revenue and called Ms. Paymore “a fiend of the people and an enema of ‘haters’ in our city.” He went on to state that she is the “educational expert” as demonstrated by her ability to locate individuals with no skill whatsoever for every major position in the district. “She sought long and hard" to find a business mismanager who had never written a budget, a head of the department of Performing Arts that has never seen an orchestra concert or a play, and other academic department heads with no experience in the curricula they oversee, "thereby saving the city dozens of dollars" stated the Mayor. "Nobody could have done so much harm to students unless it was deliberate, and we commend her for her heartlessness and the tenacity with which she strives to meet the rock-bottom standards we give her annually.” But what made this the easy choice for the nominating committee from amongst several abysmal districts is that she had also managed to garner three federal Office of Civil Rights (OCR) investigations. In one of these the Melrose district was found to have “violated its Title VI responsibilities by failing to adequately address a racially hostile environment” in the handling of a case where a Middle School teacher told a student of color to “go back to the Plantation!” (For those who are unfamiliar with Melrose, there are no plantations or even cotton fields for miles and miles, so she was clearly setting the poor child an impossible task). Ms. Paymore (known by her adoring admirers on the local School Committee as Sin D. CinderBlock) promoted this outstanding educator to the High School where she could continue to torment the same students and retire a year later with full benefits, in a process she claimed to have learned from a recent film, "Spotlight."
MyA$$ Execution Director Scottish stated that this was the first time in his memory that a Superintendent had come before them so well qualified for this honor. “Adding racial hostility to her portfolio was a nice touch and really sealed the deal!”
Many in irony-challenged Melrose might not even be able to understand this (let alone know what The Onion is). But thanks to whomever! Brilliant and Perfect!
“Adding racial hostility to her portfolio was a nice touch and really sealed the deal!”
Perfect and exactly to the point.[8-)]
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler would have a field day in Melrose. Poehler performing Driscoll's effusive discharge about CT's award would be lethal. Fey could take down CT in one fell swoop, leaving everyone in need of Depends. RD deserves the full treatment Jon Stewart could mete out to that caustic blowhard. Colbert could easily take on the rest of them. Maybe an Easter theme could be woven in, and they could resurrect Joe Casey while they're at it. He was so much fun with his inappropriate metaphors.
Scallion, you rock! When's the next installment?
Scallion, LOL [8-)]
Scallion this is the best thing I've read in a long time. So funny! You should publish more broadly.[8-)][8-)][:-D][:D]
I'm formally inviting the author of "The Melrose Scallion" to contribute whenever possible!
Scallion - you have a great audience with all of the charter and private school parents on here. Losers.
The last three years with CT and crew and Mayor Dolan's get a long to go along crew over at the school committee has been so disastrous we would all by crying if we weren't laughing.
As I voted No on the Override at my polling place (Horace Mann), I did have tears in my eyes because my kids go to school there.
I cried with other SPED parents who were viciously retaliated against shortly after complaining about IEPs not being followed and then a teacher misconduct complaint. This unfortunate retaliatory activity undertaken by administrators lead directly to the neglect of academically at risk children and undoubtedly lead to the dramatic HM fall to a level three school, which afflicted the entire district's rating. Nothing has changed other than the district called in their chips with DESE to magically manipulate the same numbers into a level two....Shazam!
"Nothing has changed other than the district called in their chips with DESE to magically manipulate the same numbers into a level two"
Nail on the head once again. No, NOTHING changed, and it was a numbers technicality, not some magnificent accomplishment of Cyndy's brilliant (not) crew. It is still a miserably failing school, with a wretched principal, despite appearances to the contrary.
The logo people on both sides should read this marvelous piece.
It's so many nails on so many heads....
With all the big trouble our city is in right now (no, not talking about the blasted non-issue of the phony, cooked "budget crisis"), it's hard to believe the fanaticism on both sides of the logo issue. Where have all these self-righteous, self-absorbed (and utterly humorless) people been about the real issues? They all need to get a life and start shoveling the real issues around for some solutions, starting with firing the sorry a$$es of the imperious and totally incompetent jerks running things. C'mon now, that one isn't even rocket science! ("Thanking" CT for her "first move" is nuts. Neither she nor RD give a rat's petunia about anything except their own hides. Virtually everything they do or say is a politically calculated move--dumb as those moves continue to be.) All this hysteria from both sides over the logo needs to be rechanneled into caring for the real stuff.[8-)]
Not cotton and feathers. I suggest tar and feathers.
All right, we are past due for another issue from this genius! Please "Melrose Scallion," we need you!
Things have worsened even from all of us figured were the all-time lows this past winter. So much material, ripe for the irony. If there is a way to screw things up, this administration, starting with RD, will figure out a brilliant way to do it to maximize the cost to taxpayers and the damage to students/teachers.
Did it escape everyone's notice that the "superintendent's evaluation" that took place last Tuesday was a non-event to the point that Driscoll made sure not one word (except her blathering) was spoken, not one single word! It was all a hush-hush past in your "rubric" and "I will make my Executive Summary" which will whitewash away the many grievous stains from bad conduct and failed actions/inactions that none of you will dare make note of but which definitely are known by many in the community, making PR firm Guilfoil proud and angry at the same time because there work was already done for them by the shills on the SC. Shame, shame, shame.
School starts in just over 2.5 weeks, and things are in absolute shambles. Great job, Melrose!
Yes...I did notice that all the lemmings on the committee said little about the super's evaluation - and pathetic Driscoll was satisfied to get through it with any deep discussion. Quite a change from previous years when CKK gave us an honest and thorough evaluation of our superintendent.
Will the individual evaluations by each SC member ever see the light of day? Are they required to make them available on The SC website or will the community have to make a public records request?
Can you spell F A R C E ?
Peal the layers of that onion.
They have in the past attached them to the minutes of a meeting - but Taymore has performed so badly for our school district that the school committee members may be too embarrassed to post them since they are typically glowing and congratulate her for a job well done - even though they did not give her a pay raise this year!
"school committee members may be too embarrassed"
This is simply not possible with this SC. They have no shame. They are without conscience. Neither do those who support them, starting with MEF. These people have destroyed this school system, and they could not care less. Their job, as they see it, is to whitewash/gloss over anything and everything, including those suffering real injuries from the injustices occurring systemically in the district, and the taxpayers who are paying a huge price not only for a failed system for the many legal defenses of what should have been deemed indefensible if the district had ethical and competent legal representation. Clearly these attorneys are neither of those things, and in fact they are making a fortune for every screwup the administration commits, on the taxpayers' dime.