School Committee – Everett Leader Herald

Council OKs mayor’s bid to join school committee

City councilors Wayne Matewsky and Jimmy Tri Le at January’s swearing in ceremony. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso

Resolution sent to Beacon Hill for approval, Matewsky’s effort to return to ward voting fails

By JOSH RESNEK

A resolution asking the state House of Representatives and the Senate to consider a home rule petition allowing the mayor to serve as a voting member of the School Committee passed Monday night. The vote was 7-4.

Another vote taken on the issue of changing voting practices from at-large to ward district voting failed.

The mayor’s initiative to gain a vote on the School Committee will now be judged and voted on by the legislature.

If and when an affirmative vote approves the measure, the mayor will sit as a voting member.

The voting change measure met a different fate.

It failed to pass.

Looking at the News

The next superintendent

By Josh Resnek

Thursday the city will find out who the next superintendent of the Everett Public Schools is going to be.

Barring any last minute histrionics, parliamentary diversions or an outright revolution, one of three finalists will be chosen to be the school superintendent for the next three years.

Thomas Stewart, one of the four original finalists has dropped out of the running because he was named to a job elsewhere and accepted the position.

I wish him the best.

He may have made a fabulous superintendent here. We will never know.

We do know Stuart made a powerful case to the Superintendent Choice Committee (SCC) about how badly he wanted to come here to be the superintendent. He impressed the SCC. They were eager to have him.

Now he’s gone.

This leaves three finalists from which the winner will ultimately be chosen and publicly announced on Thursday by the SCC.

Saturday the finalists presented themselves to the public.

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Looking at the News

Doing something different more important than what is right

By Josh Resnek

A closer examination of last week’s School Committee hearing finds the majority of members acting out a philosophy and keeping to it rather than playing by the book and making choices based on excellence.

Excellence means less than philosophy when it is mind over matter when picking a new leader of the Everett Public Schools.

School Committee members shot down an effort to add three local candidates to the list of finalists for public interviewing for the superintendent’s post.

“I’ve reviewed the cv’s. They are all wonderful people but this is a $85 million Gateway school system. It is not starter superintendent’s position.These finalists know nothing about the city of Everett. They’ve never served a day as a superintendent. I’m also upset that people who spent a lifetime making the Everett Public School System what it is didn’t get a shot. Let’s consider all candidates. That’s a motion.”

You would have thought McGlaughlin had committed a crime indicating that Acting Superintendent Janet Gauthier, Assistant Superintendent Charlie Obremski and High School Vice-Principal Dr. Omar Easy had been tossed under the bus without an interview by people claiming to know what they are doing in a best choice contest.

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Public interviewing incomplete without locals given a Chance

The School Superintendent Choice Committee, led by School Chair Thomas Abruzzese are holding sham meetings this week for the public to interview the final choices for the open superintendent’s position.

Without the three “Everett” finalists being interviewed – excluded by a incoherent exclusionary process – the interviewing of the alleged “finalists” is a fraud at worst, and a symptom of much greater political involvement in the process than is warranted and should not be allowed.

Chair Abruzzese has shown a constitutional inability to let people think on their own. His admonition when the choice process was at its very beginning – “no local candidates allowed over my dead body” – proves how Abruzzesse’s hatred for the School Department’s leadership and certain administrators make it impossible for him to lead the choice committee.

This puts in question as well his aptitude for leadership of the School Committee.

This stunted and discriminatory choice process is also an indictment of a School Committee that has absolutely nothing to say of substance in response to the outrage sweeping certain communities concerned mainly with public education within the city.

Continue reading Public interviewing incomplete without locals given a Chance

Looking at the News

The cheering was empty

By Josh Resnek

At Monday night’s School Committee meeting, a vote was taken to reconvene the search committee –thatistosay–avotewastakentoaddinto the choice mix of qualified candidates for superintendent the possibility of local candidates participating in the process.

School Committeeman Lester McLaughlin presented the motion. School Committeewoman Millie Cardello seconded it.

A vote was taken.

The measure failed, 4-3 with School Committeemen Bernie D’Onofrio and David Ela not present.

School Chair Thomas Abruzzese delighted in the vote. He asked for reconsideration.

When the vote on reconsideration was taken, all those who voted against the previous measure made an error.

One by one, they answered affirmatively instead of voting against the measure, as they intended.

Continue reading Looking at the News