frommycorner

Nepotism at LPS – alive and well

Kevin McCarthy, Jr. has been working as a custodian at the South Lawrence East School for barely one year and he has now been promoted to head custodian over Mario Roman who had been doing the work on an acting basis for a long time.  Another applicant who has been working as custodian for over ten years is Eric Pascal and he was ignored to favor McCarthy Jr.

His immediate supervisor will be his father Kevin McCarthy, Sr. who also has another son, John McCarthy, working at the South Lawrence East School.  Talk about unethical behavior!

But it doesn’t end there.  School Superintendent Wilfredo Laboy has his son-in-law working at the South Lawrence East School after a stint of just a couple of months at the Guilmette School.

This is one time that I am willing to predict that Michelle Laboy’s husband will be appointed head custodian of the Hennessey School.  (That’s not much of a prediction; I was told it was pre-arranged.)

Where are the letters to the Ethics Commission people?  Nothing can be accomplished through silence.

Doctorates

These courses are run through NOVA University, the schools where Laboy got his PhD.  Some are run during the school day complete with a breakfast, lunch, and snack. This isn’t Harvard or Yale.

The administration is also participating in NISL (who knows) training as part of an 2007 agreement with the DOE. They are out of the building quite a bit for this training.  I’m not sure who is paying; I’ve heard some courses are free and some are at reduced tuition but these courses and trainings should be after school and at the expense of the administrator.

I have also heard that some administrators do not want to participate in the programs, but are pressured by upper management, although some must participate because their schools are doing so poorly.

The Central Office is tied up during the day of the courses and trainings. Several Central Office administrators are enrolled and unfortunately, school administrators are out of the building a lot and are not visible during the school day.  Many students do not know their principals. (At LHS, 17 names are difficult to remember.)

Administrators are evaluated on their discipline statistics.  So is Laboy!

I know this will make parents “feel badly”

Last week I was criticized for my negativity about the Lawrence Public Schools by Jasmin García-Escoto, spokesperson of the school system saying that I make parents feel badly because, “Sadly, most of them can do nothing to provide their children with another type of education, and just have to conform themselves to send them to these schools…”  So, go ahead, shoot the messenger!

On January 22, 2008, the SLES Middle School received written notice from the Department of Education that because it was an underperforming school for so long, it has meet the requirements to be called a Commonwealth Priority School.  Designation as a Commonwealth Priority School is not good; it’s one step away from state take over.

My friends in the schools tell me that, “This is very serious.  This is one of the worst things that could be happening to our school system.”  The other schools who have met the criteria to be designated as a Commonwealth Priority School are the Wetherbee, Guilmette Middle, Guilmette Elementary, Tarbox, SLES Elementary, SLES Middle.

On January 5, the Arlington Middle School was designated a Priority One School. It is designated for state take over. Laboy may not be able to talk his way out of it. He won’t take the blame; the principals will.  The principals are under a lot of pressure from the Lawrence Public Schools administration and the Department of Education.

Update on Lawrence schools

Since I assume you read page 22 (February 22^nd Edition) first, let’s stick with the Lawrence Public Schools.  On January 22, 2008, Jeffrey Nelhaus, Acting Commissioner of Education sent a letter to School Superintendent Wilfredo T. Laboy advising him that six schools will be joining the ranks of Commonwealth Priority Schools (CPS), similar to that of the Arlington School at present.  The letter says in part:

“written notice to the governing body of the school, the district superintendent, if any, the school's principal, and the collective bargaining agent for the school's faculty, if any, informing them that the school is so designated.”   This letter is your formal notice that the Emily Wetherbee, Gerard Guilmette Elementary, Gerard Guilmette Middle, John Tarbox Elementary, South Lawrence East Elementary, and South Lawrence East Middle Schools in Lawrence have been designated as CPSs. Once issued, this formal notification initiates the 30-day timeframe for the district to seek reconsideration or to provide an improvement plan and appear before a State Review Panel.

Superintendent Laboy and his fanatics in the school department keep talking about “the progress they have made.”  This superintendent has been in charge for seven years and our schools are in miserable conditions.  Oh, I shouldn’t have used that word; it might offend somebody at LPS, but the Department of Education proves otherwise.

If the state does not see sufficient improvement in those schools by June, they will become CPS like the Arlington School.

Want a PhD? Come to Lawrence

Yes, in Lawrence we make it easy to advance on the job.

Recently I wrote about the Lawrence Public Schools administrators doing their school work towards their doctorate degree during work hours and I love it when the telephone starts ringing with additional information.

Some said, “I was glad to see you write about administrators in Lawrence doing their doctoral program work during school hours.  We have one here at the South Lawrence East School, Principal Dina Hickey.”  The caller went on to say that she comes in to work at 9:30 AM every morning and does nothing but sits at her computer all day (her back turned to the door of her office) and works on her doctorate.

Meanwhile students are running wild in the corridors.  So much so that teachers are hiding behind closed doors as classes change.  Then she yelled at the teachers at the last monthly faculty meeting, complaining that if she disciplines the kids it makes the teachers look like they have lost control.

Has she stopped to think that if she puts a little effort at doing her job, things are bound to work better?  Let’s face it, she is getting paid to lead.

I wonder in what she is getting a doctorate.  I know: Grant-writing!  That’s where the money is, they get to work in the administration building and they don’t have to deal with pesky kids.

Doctoral work on work hours

We all know that through the years there have been administrators in the school department using their work day and office equipment to study, research and work on their advance degrees but it had never reached the level of unabashed abuse.

I have been told that the number of administrators that are doing their doctoral work during work hours is an all-time high.

Superintendent Wilfredo Laboy has created a new cast system: those who play ball with him and those who don’t.

Bravo for Vittorioso!

There was another lively Lawrence School Committee meeting Thursday, the 31st and James Vittorioso was superb.  There was a shouting match between him and School Superintendent Wilfredo T. Laboy but when Vittorioso told him that he runs the school department by hiring friends and “see if anyone can prove me wrong!” Laboy shut up.