Once again, the Melrose School District and School Committee appear to be in violation of The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act(FERPA) as well as the State's Student Records Laws.
For well over a year now, they have been publicly posting SPED students' initials, outplacement school and monthly tuition costs in the monthly school committee agenda packets on the school committee's website http://melrosecityma.iqm2.com/Citizens/calendar.aspx. The identity of these children are readily apparent with the information provided in Cyndy Taymore's monthly budget report included in the agenda packets.
The most recent violation was page 29-32 of the agenda packet for June 28, 2016 where well over a dozen students are identified.
The town of Tewksbury was recently found in violation by DESE and hadn't even published student's names! Responsibility lies with her and School Committee Chair Margaret Driscoll for permitting the release of this information in violation of FERPA.
In March, 2015 a document including the grade level and schools of several special education students was published online in a meeting agenda packet. Though names or initials weren't published in this case, the list apparently was arranged in alphabetical order by student last name, making it possible to conclude individual student names. The DESE found that the release of data made it possible to identify the students, even though their names were not included.
Read more: http://www.lowellsun.com/breakingnews/ci_28515860/state-hits-
tewksbury-schools-over-data-release#ixzz4HS7V4Zd5
Will these people ever learn?
They have no shame.Taymore has performed so badly for our school district that the school committee members may be too embarrassed.
Maybe the track record of the MPS SpED department and its FERPA violations are the reason why PWL wasn't hired for the Tewksbury Super Job. Melrose is stuck with her and her law-breaking boss, CT.
Sadly - the school committee members have been shown to be lapdogs for Taymore and the Mayor - with each seeking favors or school preferences for their kids. The last one with any moral convictions and ethics (CKK) left the committee!
There was simply no purpose to continually make public a list of SPED students, their outplacements and monthly tuition costs, other than to castigate these families of children with disabilities for the extra burden they place on the school budget. Its bad enough that the school administrators, Mayor, SC chair and school committee continually implicate these kids for the alleged school budget deficit and lower MCAS scores. We should all be outraged that these kids and their families have now been identified in such a crude and public way, labeled for the extra resources their children need in order to learn. The repeated public posting of this list has branded the letter “D” for disability on these children and their families and there is simply no excuse for that. The reality is this administration finds it more expedient to ignore these kids, their families and their needs and instead, publically embarrasses and harasses them with public postings such as these, and of course the normal "go to" strategies such as administrator's false police reports, fake harassment charges, threat letters from the city's city solicitor's office and the ever so subtle "well being check " calls to DCF or the local police. All this in an effort to get SPED families to go away or move out of town. When certain families have had enough, they hire a lawyer or a SPED Advocate who negotiates an agreement with the school department to outplace the child to a facility that can do what this administration is simply too lazy, callous and incompetent to do; teach them.
Wow. Once again we have more federal violations. I guess our superintendent and Margaret Driscoll don't get it. Why do we keep on going down this road? It's very easy to answer this question. Apparently they're not checking with the city solicitor or the school attorney. As a mom, thats' my thoughts. But how about the privacy of my kids, god for bid if my children did anything wrong, they'd be out to prosecute them. Here's the point folks, because they are not held accountable for anything, it doesn't cost them a dime, the tax payers are on the hook for this, once again. Maybe, our superintendent should resign. And maybe Margaret Driscoll should resign too. She's in charge of the school committee, you'd think she would know what the law is. But apparently she didn't check with legal counsel and that goes for the superintendent too. So let me put this in easier words for all of you to understand. Our superintendent should be fired, margaret driscoll should resign, apparently none of this had to do with her children, I wonder if it did, would it have gotten as far as it did. I'm just a concerned mom and I'm tired of it. Every time we turn around we have a federal violation.
Forget it - Driscoll or Taymore will never resign - they will need to be forced out - too much pride in what they do! It will require additional OCR and SPED violations and outcry from the community.Their followers are dedicated and committed and refuse to open their eyes to see what is going on around them. Melrose will be the community that other point to as to what NOT to do concerning these OCR violations at local school conferences, Taymore will continue her lack of addressing student outcomes, the school committee will continue to heap praises upon Taymore and give her exemplary evaluations, and the kids will continue to be short-changed! Nothing new here, folks, move along!
Speaking of, did Taymore get her "exemplary" rating from Dolan, Driscoll and the lemmings this year for her disastrous year at the helm? Or did they spin the two Federal Office of Civil Rights charges into cotton candy with the help of CT's $8000 a year public relations contractor??
The End of Cycle individual evaluations were submitted at the July 26th SC meeting. The practice of each individual disclosing their ratings at the meeting itself has apparently ended as it was just too embarrassing for the school committee members to keep a straight face while handing out exemplary ratings like candy at Halloween for one of the worst performing supers in recent history. Ms. Driscoll will cull out all negative ratings from individual evaluations and present her "consensus" rating of "Exemplary" at the August 26th SC meeting. There will be lots of fawning over our beloved superintendent as angels on high look down from Ms. Driscoll's shoulders.
Please don't file a Public Records Request for school committee members' individual ratings as Ms. Driscoll will ensure that these documents disappear in to thin air.[:-|]
Can't wait to see the evaluations or even the summary of Taymore's performance evaluation! If they give her an exemplary rating - then how do they justify the fact that they are not giving her a pay increase?
I read somewhere that Taymore declined the pay increase. Although I disagree with her most of the time, that was the right decision.
I'm outraged she draws a salary based on my taxes. She's a complete nitwit who couldn't survive a week outside of government. Just like the mayor. Oh, I forgot. He was counting bedpans in the old folks home before this. Rob, when you have to go back, count them on the way into the rooms not on the way out. You won't stink as much.
I can't help but wonder why this smells so bad. Our great city elected officials and our superintendent continue to bring more federal violations of our students of melrose. Have we reached a point that even the mayor might not realize that we are going downhill here. As a mom, the word on the street is, is mayor dolan the same man that we appointed to be mayor originally? Is something going on that none of us know about? I think the man that I'm talking about has done a lot of good things but I question has he lost sight of what is going on in the melrose public school system? Why do I say this? Very simple answer, why do we continue committing these federal violations? The rights of the students and the parents and the tax payers. Makes no sense to me, we have the city solicitor, the school attorney, and any other attorney that they may possibly need. I know I have lost confidence in some of our elected officials and our mayor, and definitely our superintendent.
"Mom" aka "Dad" You know darn well (you're just playing dumb in your rhetorical "questions") that the entire administration is corrupt from top to bottom, that it simply doesn't matter how many laws are broken or kids who get hurt. These scum simply could not care less. All they care about is their bloated salaries, their pensions, their pending consultant positions, their sweetheart benefits packages and gold parachutes. Their reputations are trashed, but they remain in denial. The smart ones have their eyes on the rear view mirror at all times because they know something is very wrong, but they won't allow anyone near enough to them to tell them anything but the "exemplary" BS, so they're not quite sure about how close to the edge they are teetering. There have been so many areas where the district and the community have been shamed and/or ripped off in huge ways (many of them still unknown to the slumbering, apathetic public)--OCR times who-knows-how-many-complaints, Kick a Ginger Day, OML Secretary of State condemnations from outrageously illegal actions framed by the idiotic and incompetent attorneys the city continues to use to frame their poor conduct, Senior Skip Day, Red Cups (Facebook), the explosion of MCAD lawsuits against the district, the illegally concealed ODs and other suicides, the outrageous and increasing explosion of younger and younger students engaging in horrifically dangerous practices, and then down to all the bad municipal "decisions" made via corrupt processes--water and sewer debacle that just keeps giving, damaging "planning" decisions, huge fire hydrants of tax dollars directed at stupidly conceived and totally unnecessary school building projects, and on and on.
Instead of fixing the problems at their source, the public will now be riveted by silly discussions around "councilor" vs "alderman" when they could in fact be fixing the disgraceful mess of a city charter, get the mayor off the school committee, put back a Recall provision, fix the inexcusable typos, and get down to the business of routing out the many bad apples in school/city governance and administration. That must happen at some point. The whole thing is imploding in lots of ways already (except that the public is too preoccupied or dumb to care or notice). At some point none of it will be sustainable, no matter how many PR firms they hire to make it look like it's still functioning. It will be curious to see which bit of nonsense will make the whole thing come crashing down. Even the imagined mighty do fall.
"the PR contract is for $800 per month or almost $10,000 a year. Also, the yearly "pot of money" for raises for non-union administrators was just approved by the school committee at the last meeting."
Absolutely disgraceful.
Instead of raises, there should have been (should still be) a large round of summary firings for Just Cause.
Got that, Vanny, "Cause." And in case you are too dumb to realize it, the OCR Findings Document lays out very clearly the many reasons the district has CAUSE, starting with the blatant violations of federal law. But since you and your crack team had crafted all these brilliant strategies of how to get around the laws, like doing phony "investigations," you should be fired, too, and charged with malpractice. You have cost the taxpayers literally millions, and we may not even know the extent for many years until the dust settles on the many MCAD and SPED lawsuits this administration has caused, with your "expert" guidance....
The voters would have the ability to do this if there were a Recall provision, which of course there is not.
The voters could do what Watertown parents and community members are doing, crafting a massive petition to demand the firing/resignation of the super. Since there is no decency that can be counted on by the body (SC) that is supposed to oversee the administration, they should be required to resign, also, as they have failed utterly and willfully in their administrative oversight role. Instead of accountability, they produce the nonstop flowery garbage that CKK coined so well as "self-congratulatory." Shameful and inexcusable. (and yes, there were still "exemplary" ratings in the most recent disgrace of a "Superintendent Evaluation"--read another string on this message board for the choicest of the garbage verbiage these SC fools wrote).
So lead the way instead of telling everyone what to do!
Wake up everyone HELLO!
Why don't we ask our new Business and Financial Manager, Ms. Farrell about this. I'm sure she would give us a straight answer - straight from Taymore - "No comment"! Look closely as Ms. Farrell speaks and move and tell me you can't see those strings from above!
Better yet ask Margaret, so she can pound on her gavel, froth at the mouth, and issue some phony decree about how she's doing everything she does "on advice of counsel" in her tremulous voice indicating how hard it is for her (why she needs those angels in her head) to maintain control over her raging fury when she finds she can't control absolutely everything.
The raging, perpetually self-contratulating nutjobs in charge are a continuing disgrace to what should be a lovely community but can't be until these despots and fools are gone. As long as they continue to hold these positions of power and authority, Melrose is shamed and the entire community will be paying the many prices. In fact we will be paying for many years, both in damaged reputation and real costs of disastrously failed "management."
If your child is on a IEP its being broken everyday and that's a fact.
I agree with IEP being broken everyday. The only way they are not being broken if teachers speak up and say NO you are not taking my para I will not lose my licence. The other way IEP is not being broken is if the family has money or knows someone. Other than that they pull the paras off the child to do other duties almost everyday.
All IEP's broken a the Roosevelt school this week, due to MBM being principal.
Is it cheaper to pull paras in Melrose, because they have a handful of subs.
Melrose had the best reputation for the special needs students, what happened? The teacher's are not happy with the principals that are put into place. CT and SC don't care about the teachers, parents and the children anymore they have to much legal stuff going on. If this were any other superintendent they would of been let go, whats the hold Dolan?
...and they multiply just like those rascally rabbits.