Things had just settled down after last year’s sick time scandals when we start this summer with two more pieces of poor press for our firefighters.  We have the EMTs who decided re-certification was a waste of their time and the firefighter spending 4 months in jail without anyone having a clue.  None of this helps the firefighters, their union or the overall public opinion of our town!

Then I find the official Haverhill Firefighter’s IAFF homepage and scrolling down there is a tasteless cartoon about the Mayor’s Office.  I get that there will be animosity between the Mayor’s office and various departments – especially at budget times – but that’s a cartoon best pinned to a wall in a locker room and not posted on the internet on the official union website.

Now we add controversy over moving the Fire Chief’s job out of civil service and add to that the Firefighter’s Union being one of the last holdouts on health care concessions and I’m having a really hard time seeing these guys in a sympathetic light.  We’ve also learned that the jailed firefighter seems to have gotten quite the break after he caused an accident in 2005.

Now we have this article about the Mayor looking to finally hire some new firefighters to fill positions and hopefully stop the overtime bleeding.  I’m disappointed but not surprised at the bitterness in the comments over the thought of adding a woman firefighter to the ranks.  Everyone assumes these females are not qualified firefighters.  Of course they may not want to accept positions here based on anticipated hostility in the work environment.

Our firefighters are people who generally only come into our lives in a moment of need and vulnerability.  Their poor press lately is not confidence building in this regard.

We almost made it through an entire meeting without someone insinuating that the Superintendent did not have a long term plan for the Haverhill Public Schools.  Almost.

In the middle of discussing the possible audit of our SPED department Mr Bevilacqua stated he looked forward to hearing the results whether good or bad and was excited by the prospect of having a long term plan for our SPED department because that is something “our school department doesn’t have.”

What I find amusing, in the sadly ironic manner, is that our School Department does have a long term plan and the members of the School Committee know this.  I went in February to the District Parent Council meeting and part of the Superintendent’s update to the District Parent Council was a synopsis of the report he presented to the School Committee of his long term plans for the district.

What were these plans?  One plan defined a rotation of updating textbooks so that no subject had materials which were older than 5 years.  Unfortunately with the budget as tight as it currently is the procurement of new materials has placed this plan woefully off the priority list.

The other plan was for the district as a whole and outlined how professional development and strong leadership would provide success for programs to have all of our students “college ready” by the time they left Haverhill High School regardless of whether they choose to go to college or not.  Dr Buchanan discussed the need for high standards, aligned instruction across the district, fair assessments of all the students, and adherence to the curriculum frameworks provided by the state.  Dr Buchanan also discussed the need for up to date instructional materials for the students using the above rotation plan for textbooks and applying it to all other supplemental instructional materials.  Finally he discussed several of the safety net programs for students the district had been implementing only to have them cut drastically because of budgeting concessions.  These safety net programs work to reach kids where their strengths are and include tutoring, intervention and differentiated instruction.

I am endlessly frustrated every time I hear a member of the School Committee comment that the Haverhill Public School system has no plan.  These people know what they are saying is patently untrue but they also know that unless the Superintendent is standing right there when they say this that no one will refute them.  When someone states there is no plan it makes our district sound like the students go to school in anarchy and our teachers are merely babysitters.

There is indeed a plan.

Why do I attend these meetings instead of watching them on television?

Thursday night I arrived home aggravated again by the demeanor of our School Committee and the lack of respect they show to the 7,500 children whose future they effect.  I wanted to point out something most people miss watching these meetings on television vs attending in person.

These meetings are long, far longer than they need to be for reasons I’ve already discussed in depth elsewhere on this blog.  I wonder if perhaps the meetings are made needlessly lengthy to dissuade the public from attending.  The items on the agenda are sometimes tedious especially around budget time because of the sheer volume of facts and figures presented.  The chairs are not comfortable by any stretch of the imagination – at least the ones in the audience aren’t.  The Superintendent’s office has always been forthcoming with supplemental materials when I have requested items from the various meetings.  So why do I bother making the trip to City Hall every other Thursday?

I will not allow these people to conduct meetings before an empty audience chamber.  Their conduct is deplorable when the camera is not on them and I believe the public needs to know this.  Members of our School Committee sit as elected officials and preside over the education and future of every child who attends Haverhill Public Schools and yet they treat the meetings like delinquents in study hall.  I have watched these people talking to each other while the Superintendent is giving a presentation, they roll their eyes while others are talking, and they giggle like schoolchildren.  I have seen them text messaging (can we please extend our cell phone policy to those responsible for making the policies?)  I’ve watched as committee members have walked out of the room in the middle of being addressed, called each other names, laid back and dozed in their chairs.  If this were a classroom at Haverhill High School – these people would be in Mr. Nangle’s office on a regular basis.

The irresponsible and disrespectful behavior of the committee will not inspire positive relationships with the Superintendent’s office or with the administration at any of our schools or with the teachers or parents or students.  Our school system will continue to be seen as a joke by everyone despite all the good work being done in our schools by dedicated and hard working people every day.  It is time for the committee to adhere to its own policy on School Committee Ethics!

I have a number of criticisms of the Haverhill Public Schools Website.  I have mentioned them numerous times in conversations but thought I would catalog some of them here.  I can only hope our technology department will some day fix the problems and future readers of this post will wonder why I am so disappointed.  Some of the criticisms herein are philosophical instead of technical but I have left them as I did not feel it merited separate posts.

The most frustrating issue I have with the HPS web presence is the lack of individual websites for our schools.  There is no consistency as to whether a school has a website and if it does – there’s no guarantee it will have any updated or useful information.  Also, Haverhill School Websites should be treated as part of the HPS “brand” and help not only give information about the school represented by the web site but represent the system as a whole and link between schools within our system.  Much like we demand consistency in curriculum across the city we should demand consistency in technological representation.

Take this link to the Crowell Elementary School teachers list:

Of the above listing, only Judith Murray, Roger Sulesky, Kathy Pelliccione, and Toni Barton are still at the school in the listed capacity.  The people listed incorrectly are not people who have recently moved schools as of September either – Mrs Lane retired two years ago!  Mrs McGurren left the year before that!

I’m not sure how this link, to Golden Hill Elementary School’s mission statement benefits from the list of Computer Club Students tacked on at the end.

Upon first glance, Hunking Middle School has no staff at all!  Following the links for sixth seventh and eighth grade teachers on the left we find only one teacher listed.  I can only imagine what class size issues she faces!

It is also hit or miss as to whether your child’s teacher has a teacher web site and with which service.  The Haverhill Public Schools have a software system – if I heard correctly at one of the School Committee Meetings – that teachers can use to post assignments and information – except no one uses it.  Of the many teachers at Golden Hill Elementary for example, only three are linked to from the Golden Hill Web Page as having a web presence.  These three teachers use teacherweb. At Bradford Elementary only one teacher has a web site – through schoolworld. Whittier Middle School uses the endless link system of the HPS website for their teachers – although most are “under construction.”  You can test the links yourself.

If we look at the School Committee’s section of the HPS web page, we find their goals.  Goals not updated since April of 2007.  Speaking of their goals, there is a document stating: “The Haverhill School Committee reserves the right to set goals and objectives and to establish short and long term directions for the Haverhill Public Schools.”  Really?  Can we work on that then?  I’d love to see an assessment of the success rate for those 2007-2008 goals myself.  I wonder how many members of our School Committee have read this document, or this one.  Considering the first document, on ethics, hasn’t been updated since 1998 – I doubt it gets much attention.

I also take issue with an education website incorrectly using the possessive form of a word when it means the plural.

Do we really need a News tab, an Events tab, and a News and Events tab?  Maybe we need to link to redundant in the dictionary?

Speaking of redundant, I wish links would also take you directly to the content instead of forcing the user through redundant links.  If I click a link to the Classical Academy I should go there… not here (which then links to nothing!)

Likewise, if I click a link to from here for a copy of the Agenda, I don’t want to go here first.

Every one of the links on this page brings you to a new page with a link to a document with the same name as the link you just followed.  Couldn’t the initial links go directly to the document?

I’m very supportive of our Superintendent, Dr Raleigh Buchanan.  I think he’s done wonderful things for our schools.  He’s been our Superintendent since January of 2006.  Just maybe that could be reflected in these documents?  Nondiscrimination Statement and Harassment Policy.

Then we have broken links – here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here – just in case someone from the technology department is interested.

I hope to followup with news of streamlining and improvements on the accuracy, ease of accessibility and aesthetics of our Haverhill Public Schools website.  Stay tuned.

Tuesday night brought us the first City Council Meeting of 2010.  Two discussion topics dominated the agenda; the water main brought to Western Avenue and the crumbling facade of the old Woolworth Building.  I would like to address the issue of the Woolworth Building.

The Woolworth Building has been vacant for 4 decades.  This building has no real historical significance to our downtown.  The truly historic buildings were destroyed in the Urban Renewal of the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s.  The Real Estate Boom missed this building for a reason and the time came long ago to tear it down.

The building is again in the news because part of the facade has fallen off.  Now public safety is an issue and thus the matter was brought before the City Council.  What to do with this blight on our downtown?  According to the meeting Tuesday we wait for three to four weeks while the building is surveyed to see if there is a chance it can be redeemed or if it must be torn down.

While I disagree with more waiting I understand there are processes which need to be followed.  I need to question the legitimacy of placing Paul Bergman in charge of the report determining whether or not the building needs to be demolished.  The building is currently owned by the Greater Haverhill Foundation.  In looking at the officers and directors for this organization I cannot help but notice that Mr Bergman is listed as a director of the Greater Haverhill Foundation on their 2009 filing.

While evaluating this building for demolition or resuscitation I cannot believe that Mr Bergman is without a conflict of interest.  He is a Director for the Greater Haverhill Foundation – the very foundation which owns the property and which would have to pay demolition costs for this building should the report state that demolition is the only recourse.

If we truly want to revive Haverhill’s image then let us make an honest assessment of our downtown by allowing the city Building Inspector, Richard Osbourne, to do his job instead of waiting for yet another tainted report.  Show our citizens we mean revival and renaissance by tearing down the remains of the Woolworth building and beginning anew.