As you head for your new post in Hamilton Wenham I just wanted to say good luck and thanks for your time here in Haverhill.

I would like it duly noted that as he leaves Dr Buchanan has been far more gracious about this process than our illustrious School Committee has been.  At almost every opportunity we have heard about how “Dr Buchanan is leaving Haverhill – Haverhill hasn’t left Dr Buchanan” and that he shouldn’t be making decisions because he “won’t be around to deal with the aftermath.”  I was especially disappointed in how Mr Bevilacqua tried to twist the Futures audit into something that happened solely at the whim of the superintendent – I listened to the debate on this matter and the committee was both informed and involved in the process.

Go forth, Dr B, and enjoy your time in Hamilton Wenham.  I’m amazed you stayed as long as you did and  I hope your new district appreciates your efforts.  I fear for the process of replacing you – any candidates following your departure will surely think twice if they know the School Committee will turn on them as soon as it is politically prudent to do so.

During Thursday’s School Committee Meeting we learned that Mary Malone, principal at Consentino Middle School, would replace Dr O’Brien. The vote to confirm her appointment was 5-2.  The two dissenters surprised me but the comments made by Mr Magliocchetti infuriated me.

While I understood Mr Sierpina’s concerns regarding Ms Malone’s lack of Superintendent experience I believe this would be why she applied for an Assistant Superintendent position.  Its the age old question of how do you get a job without experience and how do you get experience without a job.  Ms Malone’s strong performance as Principal will serve her well as she steps into her new position and her intimate knowledge of the district and its people will prove to be an invaluable resource to both the Interim Superintendent and the permanent hire who follows.

Mr Magliocchetti’s comments regarding Ms Malone were shameful.  His entire problem with promoting her revolved around the difficulty involved with finding someone to replace her at Consentino.  The crux of his comments were that she had done such an excellent job as Principal that she should be punished for this by not being allowed to advance her career.  It will be equally hard to replace her should she decide there is no future in Haverhill for her – forcing her to apply outside the district to further her career.  Likewise, the principals Dr Buchanan did not name who are interviewing outside the district probably also feel their futures are uncertain and their support by the school committee is nonexistant.

Interestingly enough, the outgoing Superintendent of the Hamilton-Wenham district selected an Assistant Superintendent to serve under Dr Buchanan without the controversy and negativity that surrounds this process in Haverhill.  From the article:

The three finalists have been announced in the search for an interim superintendent of schools.  Of the nine candidates interviewed the Eagle Tribune has revealed the finalists:

They are: Karen Sarkisian, superintendent of Whittier Regional Vocational Technical High School for 18 years before retiring in 2008; James Scully, a former Lawrence superintendent who was principal of Consentino Middle School in Haverhill for five years before retiring in 2008; and Euthemia Gilman, head of the city’s Silver Hill Horace Mann Charter School.

I wish them luck when they are brought before the School Committee for public interviews on June 16th.  I’ll be in the audience for that meeting and encourage you all to come watch the process first hand or tune in and catch them on Channel 9.  Each candidate will have a 45 minute interview and the first candidate’s interview begins at 7:30.

The selection process generated a fair amount of controversy regarding the decision to grant an interview to Wilfredo Laboy. Again I am annoyed at the Eagle Tribune’s use of the word secret to describe the process:

A search committee of Haverhill school officials interviewed Laboy in secret yesterday. He and several other applicants for the job are being interviewed behind closed doors this week.

First, how secret can the meeting possibly be when its posted publicly that interviews will be conducted and the newspapermen are camped at the location watching the candidates come in and out?  Second, I really would like to present the staff of the Eagle Tribune with a thesaurus and ask them to consider these words when next describing a private interview or meeting: discreet, private, sequestered, exclusive, confidential, closed door, isolated, or secluded.  The English Language is rich as are the nuances of meaning even among synonyms.  Stretch yourselves and your writing and be mindful of the difference between denotation and connotation when doing so.  My sixth grade teacher imparted that lesson upon me and I’ve not forgotten it – neither should you.  Unless perhaps your purpose is to drum up controversy and suspicion needlessly in an attempt to sell more papers – to which I say shame on you as there is plenty of newsworthy material to be found without making things up.

Interviews are underway for the Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum.  When I attended Wednesday’s DPC meeting we met upstairs because our usual meeting room was needed for interviewing.  I’m assuming they will announce finalists in time to run these people over the coals at the next School Committee Meeting on June 10th.

The posting is also up for an interim Superintendent of Schools.  I can’t imagine why anyone would want this position or the followup permanent position.  The amount of work is staggering, the pay is not competitive and you will never please the committee you report to.

Everyone I’ve spoken to is waiting to see how these positions fill.  I won’t speculate on who might be chosen but I can think of a few possible internal candidates whose promotions would cause me to accelerate my decision to home-school my children.

Morale, as usual, is low around town.  The choices for these two positions are certainly about being qualified to do the work but they are also about choosing leaders who will inspire not only the staff at the school department but the students and their parents.  To the parents who feel betrayed by Dr Buchanan’s departure – I hope that if you support the next superintendent you let him know.  Too often we only participate in our children’s education when we’re unhappy with the results.  As parents we need to participate constantly and show appreciation when the results are positive.  Lets embrace more than just the motto for the program printed on almost every school department notice – lets truly Be There!

Whomever is chosen to replace Dr Buchanan has some very big shoes to fill.  There are lots of opinions on whether or not he was the best choice for our district but no one can deny that he wasn’t an omnipresent supporter of our students.  I’m not sure when he slept because he attended sporting events, academic events, fundraisers, parent academy presentations, plays, concerts and many more events around our community.  He did all this while fielding the day to day responsibilities of Superintendent, Principal and Personnel Supervisor – as well as probably a few more hats I’m not aware of.  To these mystery people I wish you luck and look forward to meeting you; but I will caution you that my expectations are high.

I was reading this article about the changes in our school’s administration and a couple of things popped out at me that I wanted to address.

The first issue I have is with the word secrecy.  There’s a connotation to secrecy that invokes an image in many people’s minds of nefarious deeds behind closed doors.  Anything secret is immediately suspect by default.  Shawn Regan knows this and chose this word specifically and I wonder why.

For example, take this paragraph from the linked article:  When Buchanan told the School Committee he intended to interview the finalists in secret, committee member Scott Wood made a motion that the interviews be done in public. It lost in a 3-3 vote, with members Paul Magliocchetti, Ray Sierpina and Susan Danehy opposing the motion. Committee President Shaun Toohey and Joseph Bevilacqua joined Wood in pushing for public interviews. The mayor missed the vote, which required four votes to pass. I attended this meeting and listened to the debate and Dr Buchanan never said he planned for secret interviews.  He planned for private interviews out of respect for the candidates.

Mr Regan has also lumped the search for a new Superintendent and a new Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum together by linking them in this article and by implying a single process is underway to select both positions.

There are two very different searches and selections happening right now.  While they both impact our students and the future of our schools they are fundamentally different for these reasons:

The position of Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum is an appointment by the Superintendent of Schools.  The application for this position was posted and is now closed.  The candidates are ready for interviews and this process happens privately until the finalist names are announced.  Even then the ultimate hiring is done by the Superintendent – who is involving the School Committee and the public as a courtesy to them and not because he has to – Attorney Cox is quoted in the article affirming this.  While Dr Buchanan is leaving our district – until his last day he is the Superintendent with the rights and responsibilities as such.

The position of Superintendent of Schools is filled by vote from the School Committee.  As this position is only recently posted and as this is a very competitive field I believe the goal of the committee at this moment is to appoint an interim Superintendent for a period of not more than a year while they search for candidates to interview to fill the position.  This is a far more open and public process than the search above for an Assistant Superintendent.  A side note: a temporary appointment is not held to the same criteria as the permanent hiring would be.

For those who object to the Assistant Superintendent position being appointed by Dr Buchanan since he is leaving us, would you not also object to the position being appointed by an interim person who is not nearly as familiar with the district and who would also be leaving when a new Superintendent is found?  Should we leave this position unfilled for possibly a year until we can post the position again after a new Superintendent is hired?  Considering our district’s position as a level 3 school system and our struggles with MCAS scores – can we really leave this important position unfilled for an unknown amount of time?

In closing I wish to reiterate something Dr Buchanan said during the discussion referenced in the article.  He said he took offense to the implication in the statements that he should not be making this important choice.  That implication is that he would choose a candidate who would be damaging to the district simply because he wouldn’t be here to experience the fallout.  This expression of bitterness is exactly what I mean when I say that  instead of viewing Dr Buchanan’s departure and that of Dr O’Brien as a wake up call the spin invoked by certain members of the committee (and now by the press) is that of a wounded and wronged and martyred City wallowing in self pity.

It came as no surprise that the Hamilton-Wenham School District extended an offer to Dr Buchanan to entice him to become their Superintendent of Schools.

His decision to accept that offer was also not very surprising.

I guess the backstabbing and political maneuvering that followed these announcements should also not be surprising – yet I always hope for better from our leaders.

Mr Wood made sure to add a bit of snark to the email update on the Haverhill Public Schools (which would be a great thing if it were truly an update on the schools and happened more often than when he had something self serving to say!)  From Mr Wood’s email:

As many of you have read, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Raleigh Buchanan is one of three finalists for the same position in the Hamilton-Wenham School District. To clarify for everyone, Dr. Buchanan does have a signed contract with the Haverhill Public Schools for the next year and a half. However, as is standard with all Superintendent contracts in the state we are bound to them for the term of the contract but they are not bound to us. In this case, Dr. Buchanan can leave the district by giving a 90 day notice to the school committee. I write to let all parents, staff and taxpayers know that I am hoping that Superintendent Buchanan stays with the district. However, if he does choose to pursue opportunities elsewhere, please rest assured that the Haverhill Public Schools will have a leader in place to make sure the district continues to move forward. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to email me.

Note the line in the middle about how Dr Buchanan “is not bound to us” since he has a clause to cancel his contract.  Despite this clause being standard contract fare – Mr Wood attempts cast Dr Buchanan’s leaving as a betrayal.

Then from the second news article linked above we have this gem from Mr Bevilacqua:

“We had no idea he had applied or was even looking somewhere else,” Bevilacqua said. “I guess now we know why he wanted to delay so many big decisions like the Bartlett School.”

Considering that to utilize the Bartlett School there would need to be renovations, a program to move into the building, the will of the committee to place the program and funding for said program and renovations – I can see why Dr Buchanan wasn’t ready to make that recommendation.  I’m also wondering what other decisions were delayed to account for the “many” in the above quote.

As to why Dr Buchanan did not approach the committee with this opportunity – I do believe we covered this issue when Mr Nangle applied for a different position.  Why open yourself up to the fallout when you’re not a finalist for a position?

Most importantly, what I want to add is this:  Good Luck in your new district Dr Buchanan.  I’m completely fine with him leaving – If he had asked me what I thought he should do I would have told him to take the position in Hamilton-Wenham.  A better contract, in a more affluent district with less budget problems and fewer children and less politics is an obvious decision.  Anyone who faults him for doing what is best for him and his family is just chewing on sour grapes.  Certainly the students in Haverhill have lost an ally and supporter but considering how much our local politics hobbles anyone who tries to accomplish anything good in our town this is hardly surprising.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Dr O’Brien, our Superintendent of Curriculum announced he would be leaving his position in Haverhill.

This past week, Dr Buchanan, our Superintendent, announced he was a finalist for the position of Superintendent in Wenham.  Many of the people I’ve spoken to are surprised and disappointed.  I merely wonder why its taken him this long to ponder moving!

The School Committee is considering whether or not to offer him a contract extension to entice him to stay.  Unfortunately I doubt they can write a contract giving Dr Buchanan the things that would truly make the difference.

Our public meetings are shameful – If this is how grownups act on camera then I cannot imagine the day to day interaction of these people with our Superintendent.

The budget is a mess.  This isn’t any one person’s fault and is totally beyond the purview of anyone in the City of Haverhill but that doesn’t mean the stresses placed on the city and its people aren’t real.  The state needs to change the way schools are funded – or the federal government needs to make sweeping education reform that is productive and helpful before this issue improves.  That being said – I’ve sat through many budget meetings and I know we could handle things better!

Our MCAS results have essentially topped out.  With the severity of the cuts we’re facing there’s no way we’re going to improve much beyond where we are now.  The state has come in for their evaluation – since we’re a level 3 school in a sea of higher performing schools for our geographic area – and asked what, besides money, can the district benefit from.  What else is there besides money?  Sure we can use textbooks but that costs money!  We’d love to give our teachers the professional development they deserve but that costs money.  Many of the schools need repairs but there’s that money issue again.  Class sizes are higher than we’d like but teachers cost money.  It would be fantastic to expand the offerings at HHS, give foreign language classes at the middle schools and have a full marching band but these items cost money.

I have a list of 101 things that Dr Buchanan would provide for our schools if only he could.  None of the items are particularly extravagant.  None of the items are remotely in our grasp either.  Sadly, until society places the value on education that we need to and stop treating the school day as glorified free babysitting we will never have the means to attain those 101 goals.

I really wish I had a copy of that email circulated about all the problems at Haverhill High School.  Its too bad there’s no version with the names removed circulating in the press.  I’ve heard so many rumors and allegations and partial quotes that I desperately want to resolve with the actual letter but instead I’m left with a sparse accounting by the newspaper and some discussion during the last school committee meeting to draw my conclusions.

The first question I have is this:  Did this letter somehow get lost in the internet for the last five years?  The MCAS cheating allegations are five years old.  Governor Romney left office in 2007.  Where has this email been?

The second question I have is whether or not this letter really came from a group of teachers at Haverhill High School.  Absent actually viewing the letter, I need to rely on accounts from others who have.  Listening to the comments made at the school committee meeting on Thursday I get the impression that grammar and spelling and sentence construction were lacking in this letter.  Combine that with the lack of knowledge about who our current Governor is and I sincerely hope this letter was not indeed written by anyone teaching children any subject at any grade level in our school system.

The anonymity issue brings with it problems.  Without being able to verify who brought these accusations it is difficult to assign merit to them.  Certainly I understand fear of reprisal however teachers are union employees who can grieve any unjust treatment and I do believe the government also has laws specifically to protect whistle blowers – which if these allegations were true the complaining parties would qualify for protections using those laws.

Anonymity also makes it more difficult to request more information from the complaining parties.  They were willing to name specific people in the letter and force those people to undergo investigations into their conduct but they were unwilling to stand behind their words and open themselves up for questioning as well.  One of the founding principles of our justice system is that we have the right to confront our accuser – while none of this has found its way to a courtroom yet I do believe knowing who is setting forth accusations and why would help uncover the truths behind the issues presented.

Could the accusations be true?  Maybe.  What if the accuser is a student who is unhappy they failed MCAS and looking for revenge?  Or what if the accuser is someone with a vendetta against someone mentioned in the letter?  What if they are indeed teachers and there are huge problems at the school but no one will come forward because of the poor press surrounding this fiasco?  What if this is a political move by disgruntled members of the school committee to undermine the leadership at the high school and of the school department?  Motivation matters and can only be determined when you know who the letter writer really is.

Unfortunately I doubt we will ever know who wrote this letter.  We can only then look to the issues mentioned and prove or disprove them.  Certainly we need to be watchful of our system and protective of our students and ensure the best possible education for all of them.  Are we really providing that by jumping through hoops placed by someone anonymous and spending already scarce resources on what may very well be someone’s idea of a really poor practical joke?  Are there issues at Haverhill High School that need to be addressed?  Absolutely!  Can we please work on concrete, verifiable issues affecting the students today instead of five year old vague allegations?

I want to start this week with a positive post and our experience Friday evening at the HHS performance of Little Shop of Horrors is the perfect subject for such a post!

After dinner I ushered the kids off to the high school to see the play.  We talked about the play as we drove because I knew some of the subject matter could be a little scary.  Plus my kids absolutely love the dentist and I didn’t want to ruin that

We got to the high school early so we could get our tickets and make the obligatory bathroom trip and get dessert at the concession stand.  For three people to see a live show and have snacks for under $30 total I consider this a bargain on top of being a lot of fun.  We stopped at all the tables and my daughter is confused by the selling of carnations.  I keep telling her they are to buy to give to the performers after the play as a way of saying “good job” but she just wants to get one and take it home.  Dr Buchanan arrived shortly after we did and to my kids he’s a local celebrity so they made sure to wave and say hello and ask him a dozen questions about nothing in particular.

The play was fantastic.  The young lady who played Audrey has a wonderful singing voice and played her part very well.  Some you tube videos can be found here.  The gentleman who played Seymour did a fantastic job as well – and I remembered him from his equally impressive job as Scrooge in the HHS version of A Christmas Carol.  The gentleman who played Audrey’s boyfriend, the dentist, had my children so utterly convinced that he was a mean guy that we had to stop after the show and see him and say hello.  He couldn’t have been more gracious in taking the time to talk to them and thank them for coming and he apologized for scaring them.  All of the performers did a wonderful job and my kids stopped a few of them to tell them so.  I really want to give credit to those students for all taking a minute to say hello and thanks for coming to two little kids they didn’t know who stopped them out of the blue.

The work done with the set was also very good.  The four versions of Audrey Two were well made.  The audience enjoyed the dancing plant when Audrey Two was small enough to be carried around by Seymour.  The big versions were quite convincing to my kids – they were very concerned about the people who were eaten.  I kept trying to explain to them that they were really giant puppets.  Thankfully at the end of the show when everyone took their bows the people who were inside the plant came out and that ended the whole debate about the puppet plant.

The one wish I have for the performances is better attendance.  I think the house was about half full when we were there Friday.  I wonder if sending home notices of upcoming performances to the kids in the lower grades would help?  Generally I don’t see the articles in the paper until the very last minute and by then I often have other things happening.  These plays are a great way to get kids excited about going to live performances and about attending HHS.  While talking about the scenery before the play, I mentioned they could be in the drama group when they got to high school.  Each one thought a different aspect of the performance was more for them.  My daughter wants to sing and get dressed up and my son likes building things.  Both of them were asking if this school was the one they would be going to and what else could they do there.  We had a wonderful discussion about extra curricular activities and high school.

Thanks again for the great performance, the night out and the opportunity to discuss school and the future with my kids.

I was very surprised, as was the Eagle Tribune, that nothing was directly discussed regarding the letter that surfaced yesterday making very serious allegations about Haverhill High School.

I was dismayed at Mr Toohey’s comment about the burden of subcommittee work.  The last time I checked the position of School Committee Member was a compensated part time job with great responsibility to the students and City of Haverhill.  This job was not thrust upon these people like a draft notice – each of them very purposefully spent time and in some cases money to convince the voters in Haverhill they were willing and able to do this job.  Don’t tell me its a burden.

To that end, I wonder how successful the Superintendent will be in getting the School Committee to attend the special one day seminar he wants to hold to educate them on the new standards before the Race to the Top team comes in to evaluate the district.  Everyone was very nice about saying they would attend but when the day comes I wonder how many will actually show up.

I’m also endlessly disappointed in the things our School Committee members don’t know.  Mr Magliocchetti’s endless quest to “learn about education in Haverhill” really should have begun before he started campaigning and should be at a much more comprehensive level than it is currently at.  I seriously think these are just exercises in seeing who he can get to perform for him each week at the meetings.  If he truly wanted understanding he could go into the schools and meet with a wider audience of administrators and teachers and bring his findings back to the School Committee.

I wholeheartedly endorse the small “trial” audit with Futures Education.  I can’t believe it took until this meeting for someone on the School Committee to ask if references had been checked!  Couldn’t they have asked that in a phone call or email much earlier in the week?  These people were supposed to be vaguely prepared to vote on this issue at this meeting and yet I always feel like they are seeing each issue for the very first time each week – this does not inspire confidence in their ability to oversee the education of our students.

We received an update from the folks at Whitson’s regarding the food service program.  I have suggested to the District Parent Council that they do a Parent Academy on food service and nutrition a few times this year – now that Ms Danehy has also made the suggestion at this meeting maybe it will happen!  My daughter has their lunches every day and repeatedly when I ask her what the best part of school was as we’re walking home from the bus she tells me “lunch – it was so yummy I ate it all up!”  So either I am the world’s worst cook and she can’t wait to get a decent meal or the lunch program is pretty good.  I am dismayed when I sometimes sub lunch duty at Crowell Elementary at the volume of food thrown away by the students.  For this I blame the parents – since the kids toss homemade lunches as well as school lunches.  Teach your kids to be good eaters!  Stop sanitizing their food completely and teach them to try new things.  No one can subsist their whole life on Chicken and Fries or bland crust less sandwiches with apple slices.  We live in a country with an immense variety of fresh foods available all year and yet we don’t appreciate or take advantage of this fact.  Instead we turn to overly processed prepackaged conveniences with little to no health benefits and then wonder why we’re faced with an obesity epidemic.  Sending home the paper with the kids’ BMIs on them won’t change anything at all – although I am curious to see these papers go home and the firestorm that will erupt around them.

Mr Sierpina brought up the obvious elephant in the room which is closing the Crowell Elementary School.  Apparently he hasn’t visited there in a while to understand that the 85 kids listed on the class totals aren’t the only kids being serviced in that school.  At Crowell one “empty” classroom does speech therapy, another does preschool testing and yet another is filled with mats and trampolines and other obstacles to do another kind of special ed testing.  He also doesn’t realize that until the 5th grade left Golden Hill Elementary overcrowding in that school was so high that students were receiving instruction in the hallways and in closets converted to teaching areas.  Adding three classrooms full of students and three classrooms of testing/therapy to Golden Hill will return us to that level of overcrowding.

When discussing what we’re currently doing as a district to provide safety nets to our at risk kids in the middle school and high school Mr Magliocchetti cited the wonderful program of foreign language tutoring done by Aaron Pinet and his classmates.  Mr Magliocchetti wants to see more of these programs as they are a no cost solution to some serious problems facing the district.  While I agree that mentoring and tutoring by older students is beneficial to both parties I do not want to see these programs used to the exclusion of all other forms of safety nets.  It is unfair to place the burden of keeping at risk kids in school and performing well solely on the backs of our high school students.  Every single successful safety net program has parental involvement and support – what are we doing to involve and motivate parents to keep their children involved and motivated?  What too are we doing as a society to encourage students to be proud of their interest in learning?  Lastly what are we doing to educate everyone that should a child’s aptitude and interest take them on a path outside of college and onto a trade – that this too is ok?  College isn’t inherently better than trade school and in our current economy with the horribly inflated costs and time involved in getting a college education the students selecting trades are coming out ahead economically on a scale not before seen!

Have a wonderful weekend and I will be enjoying the Comedy Night at Michaels this evening.