By: State Senator Steve Panagiotakos – April, 2008 Chairman Senate Ways & Means Committee The following information is intended to address the issue of local mandates and explains how the state complies with the applicable laws. I would also like to explain how the state assists municipalities in the funding of certain education categories. […]
VALLEY PATRIOT EXCLUSIVE! By: Tom Duggan – January, 2008 The North Andover School Committee is suing their former acting Superintendent Richard Bergeron for illegally giving himself a $4,484.34 raise without school committee approval. A complaint filed in Lawrence District Court claims that Bergeron ordered a payroll clerk to put the additional money in […]
Asks Community to stand with our Veterans by Wilfredo Laboy, posted 1/10/08 During a period in which the City of Lawrence and the Lawrence Public Schools have made significant steps towards ongoing improvement, we are saddened and outraged by such morally and ethically unacceptable conduct by James Stokes. In November’s School Committee elections, […]
Sandy Gleed This Monday’s special town meeting demonstrated far more about the shortcomings of municipal government than it did about the average citizen’s desire to exert control over wireless communications. The wireless article sparked very legitimate concerns about: * our town’s failure to monitor current cell tower permits * our town’s […]
By: Ralph Wilbur – December, 2007 In the late 1960’s, North Andover was one of the first communities to wholeheartedly adopt the then current fad for “open classroom” teaching. A new high school was constructed without internal partitioning walls and the result was noise, constant distractions and educational bedlam. Generations of North Andover […]
Tom Duggan – December, 2007 Last month, my 7th grade daughter at the North Andover Middle School came home from school and said that she learned in her Spanish class how the leader of Venezuela (Hugo Chavez) was a “good guy” for giving cheap oil to poor people here in the US. She also said […]
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX By: Dr. Charles Ormsby – September 05, 2007 In our July edition, I wrote an article entitled “Snookered” that analyzed a highly questionable pro-override campaign postcard distributed by North Andover United (NAU) just days before our recent override vote (See figure below). The group’s postcard cited home sales statistics for […]
By: Tom Duggan – August, 2008 James Desrosiers does not like to talk about his troubled childhood growing up in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, but mentions that he had lacked any goals and had no real direction in school. At 17 years old, Desrosiers joined the military and was ordered to run two miles. “Two miles?” […]
August, 2007 We wish to thank author J.K. Rowling for inspiring so many people, especially young children, to read and to enjoy reading in the age of internet, television and video games. In the 24 hour period from midnight July 21st, to midnight July 22nd, over 15 million copies of “Harry Potter and the Deathly […]
Tom Duggan (07/03/07) Lawrence Superintendent of Schools Wilfredo Laboy has been under fire by critics over the last month for his decision to house newly arrived immigrant students with lack of English proficiency in the “old” high school building on Haverhill Street once the new $110 million campus is officially opened. Teacher’s union president Frank McLaughlin […]
May 5, 2007 We are looking forward to the circus that will take place at this year’s May 14th North Andover Town Meeting. On the town warrant to be decided by North Andover voters is a Proposition 2 ½ Override. A memo of agreement signed on by the Board of Selectman, the School Committee […]
By: Tom Duggan – May 7, 2007 When I thought of my daughter Hanna advancing from 5th grade at the Thomson School to 6th grade at the North Andover Middle School (NAMS), the last thing I was thinking about was grade inflation. I was more concerned about issues relating to the transition, like bullying, […]
PAYING ATTENTION! WITH TOM DUGGAN By Tom Duggan, February, 2007 Maybe the North Andover School Committee really isn’t incompetent. Perhaps it is completely capable of running the schools efficiently and just refuses to do so. Whatever the case, an education audit released last month on the condition of the North Andover school system showed that […]
By: Tom Duggan – February, 2007 NORTH ANDOVER – At a recent meeting of the Board of Selectmen, where the town’s capital improvement plan was being discussed, tax and spend “school advocate” Cindy Jalbert stood before the board whining about how the town needs a Prop. 2 1/2 Override and how her Committee on Capital […]
September, 2006 At North Andover’s June 5th Annual Town meeting, the School Committee threatened to cut 23 classroom teachers if its budget was reduced from its original request to the “To Be Balanced” amount, despite an earlier presentation by members Ormsby, Kelly, and parent Diana Headrick showing that these cuts could be avoided by accepting […]