Education – Everett Leader Herald

Looking at Education

In the end it was all about change for the sake of change

By Josh Resnek

Last Thursday night, the Superintendent Choice Committee decided to take a chance with new leadership and younger leadership for its choice of school superintendent.

The consensus seemed to be that nearly everyone having a say in this process sought the kind of superintendent who had no ties to the city or its school administration or its politics or society.

There were some loud cries of unfair from those longtime employees who had applied for the position but were not granted interviews.

In the end, all those not interviewed graciously accepted the choice of Priya Tahiliani as the next superintendent.

Teachers by and large are believed to have latched on to her candidacy from the very start, according to school administration insiders.

“She was the choice right from the git go,” said an administrator.

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Sacrificing for Your Kids

There are hundreds of Everett young people heading back to college this week.

Everyone participating in the college experience understands how expensive the experience is.

There are hundreds of parents, grandparents, friends and the kids themselves, trying to come up with enormous amounts of money to pay the schools the huge fees necessary to gain entrance to residence halls and classes.

Parents, grandparents and students are emptying their checking accounts and their savings accounts to pay extraordinary tuitions.

They are also taking loans, enormous loans, to pay for their college educations.

The amounts are mind boggling – and they are real and they must be paid back.

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Everett Residents Named to Dean’s List at Boston University

Four Everett residents were recently named to the Dean’s List at Boston University for the Spring semester. Students recognized for this honor include: Nirajan Pandey, Alisa Pham, Tiago Souza, Sage Willis. Each school and college at Boston University has their own criterion for the Dean’s List, but students generally must attain a 3.5 grade pointaverage (on a 4.0 scale), or be in the top 30 percent of their class, as well as a full course load as a fulltime student.

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Cardinal O’Malley must support Pope John XXIII during time of need

190429_popejohn_JP_16 — The entrance to Pope John XXIII High School on Broadway, Everett.

Pope John XXIII High School deserves the aid of the Boston Archdiocese in order to remain open.

It deserves to come back from a death sentence that was placed upon it, and then removed, by the Archdiocese.

Cardinal O’Malley needs to reach out to the hundreds of alumni, present students, teachers and to the administration of the Catholic school who are now involved in a life or death struggle to keep the school open.

If the Boston Archdiocese and Cardinal O’Malley can spend $25 million to rehab Holy Cross Cathedral, then certainly $1 million can be found to keep Pope John XXIII High School open.

This is not just another Catholic school that has lost its reason to exist.

The outpouring of energy and emotion from everyone involved with the school leaves us with the strong sense that Pope John XXIII has a chance to sustain the reprieve given it by the Archdiocese – but this won’t happen without the direct intervention of the Cardinal.

Pope John XXIII isn’t financially unsound at this point because of its own financial ineptitude. In fact, the school was cruising along nicely… until a vendor the school did business with went bankrupt and stopped paying the school what he owed it to the tune of $600,000.

That vendor, who should be in jail, cannot be allowed to sink the school.

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Cardinal Please!

190429_popejohn_JP_08 — Pope John XXIII alumni listened attentively.

By Lorenzo Recupero & Joe Prezioso

The battle cry of the Pope John Tigers roared loudly across the school’s auditorium Monday evening as hundreds of current students, administrators, alumni and local politicians offered their feelings, ideas, and support for how to keep the Catholic School open amidst a $1.5 million shortfall that threatens to shutter the school’s doors for good if the money isn’t handed over to the Archdiocese by May 23.

That leaves the school, which opened its doors 54 years ago, just 23 more days to come up with a colossal amount of money or the roughly 300 students attending now will be searching for an education elsewhere.

A Broward County Florida insurance firm-turned- ‘Ponzi scheme’ headed by the same man that bilked Pope John XXIII of about $1.5 million, cost Florida, policyholders $100 million, according to Florida investigators.

Philip Morgaman owes Pope John XXIII about $1.5 million after declaring a bankruptcy and failing to make his monthly payments according to his contract with the school.

His company provided the school with foreign students and with their boarding, which was very successful for a number of years. In the end, it appears Morgaman took the money from the students’ parents and failed to hand over to the school its fair share for educating them and for putting them up in the school dormitory. Only through the heroic actions of Carl DiMaiti has the school remained open this long.

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