Lawrence Public Schools Service 258 Homeless Children Every Day

Lawrence Public Schools Service  258 Homeless Children Every Day

  The Valley Patriot publisher Tom Duggan hosted Arlin Santiago on the Paying Attention! Television Program earlier this month. Santiago is the “Educational Stability Specialist” for the Lawrence Public Schools. She appeared on the program to talk about what the schools are doing to help foster children and homeless children who are students in the […]

School Faculty Turnover in the Merrimack Valley

School Faculty Turnover in the Merrimack Valley

By: Amy Berard – March, 2016 According to the most recent data available from the Massachusetts Department of Education, teacher retention rates vary from one Merrimack Valley district to the next. Methuen boasts a teacher retention rate of 93.3%. However, their principal retention rate is 50%. 96.6% of educators and 97.7% of administrators in Methuen […]

What I Learned 30 Years Ago When the Challenger Shuttle Blew Up

What I Learned 30 Years Ago When the Challenger Shuttle Blew Up

PAYING ATTENTION! ON-LINE EXTRA   On the day of the Challenger explosion I was teaching at the Henry K. Oliver School in Lawrence.   Having lost my first bid for school committee at 18 years old, I had been offered a position as a substitute teacher and oddly enough, made a permanent substitute almost immediately […]

Questions Every Parent Should Ask to Learn More About Their Child’s School

Questions Every Parent Should Ask to Learn More About Their Child’s School

By: Amy Berard – November, 2015 1. How often is the SpEd (Special Education) teacher in the inclusion classroom? At an IEP meeting, parents will be notified if their child is in an inclusion class. A class is labeled as an inclusion class when a SpEd teacher is pushing in to provide extra support for […]

Teacher Speaks Out on Poor Treatment in Lawrence Schools

Teacher Speaks Out on Poor Treatment  in Lawrence Schools

By: Amy Berard – August, 2015 I am one of the 59 Lawrence teachers whose contract was not renewed this year. Recently, on June 11, you reported on this. I would like to share with you and possibly your readers my experience teaching within the Lawrence Public School District. I have taught in Lawrence at […]

Fired Lawrence Counselor Says She Wants to be Made Whole

Fired Lawrence Counselor Says She Wants to be Made Whole

By: Tom Duggan  -June, 2015 A fired guidance counselor in the Lawrence Public Schools, Brenda Sudol-Kirwin, won an arbitration hearing against the schools in August of 2013, for sick leave for injuries she incurred while working in the schools. But Kirwin says the issue is not over and wanted to go public about the abuse […]

Sister of Murdered Child in 1985 Raises Money for Headstone, Ceremony Slated for July

Sister of Murdered Child in 1985 Raises Money for Headstone, Ceremony Slated for July

Tom Duggan, May, 2015 The friends and family of a child murdered in 1985 have privately raised nearly $4,000 for a headstone, 30 years after the murder of Michelle Pimentel in 1985. Pimentel’s friends and family raised the money in less than one week after appearing on 980WCAP’s Paying Attention Radio program to tell their […]

Family and Friends of Murdered Child in 1985 Trying to Raise Money for Headstone

Family and Friends of Murdered Child in 1985 Trying to Raise Money for Headstone

The friends and family of a child murdered in 1985 are desperately trying to raise money for her headstone 30 years later.  By: Tom Duggan – 4-26-14 In 1985 a middle school student at the Kane Jr. High School in Lawrence was brutally stabbed to death by her step father after she came forward to school […]

Interview with Superintendent-Receiver, Jeff Riley, PT II ~ No Condoms in Lawrence Schools, Test Scores and Teen Pregnancy Under Receivership

Interview with Superintendent-Receiver, Jeff Riley, PT II ~ No Condoms in Lawrence Schools, Test Scores and Teen Pregnancy Under Receivership

This is part II of Valley Patriot publisher Tom Duggan’s interview with Lawrence State Receiver for the Lawrence Public Schools who took over and replaced the school committee nearly three years ago. Jeff Riley interview PART 1 Here    DUGGAN: What are your thoughts on the teacher’s union. RILEY: There’s this huge fight in the […]

PODCAST Doris Rodriguez Says She Will Lower Sales Tax, Fight for Local Control and Exposes Pavel Payano as a Lantigua Candidiate

PODCAST Doris Rodriguez Says She Will Lower Sales Tax, Fight for Local Control and Exposes Pavel Payano as a Lantigua Candidiate

By: Tom Duggan, August 30, 2014 Doris Rodriguez is in a three way primary race for the Democrat nomination for State Senate against failed state Representative Barbara L’Italian and Lawrence School Committeeman Pavel Payano. Rodriguez appeared on the Paying Attention Radio program for a debate but L’Italian and Payano refused to be int eh same room with […]

A One on One Interview with Superintendent-Receiver Jeff Riley – PART 1

A One on One Interview with Superintendent-Receiver Jeff Riley – PART 1

  October, 2013 – Valley Patriot Publisher Tom Duggan sat down with Lawrence Superintendent/Receiver Jeff Riley of the Lawrence Public Schools for a one on one interview. Riley was appointed Receiver of the Lawrence Public Schools by the Massachusetts Department of Education after an 81 page report detailed the lack of leadership of the Lantigua […]

Case Against Former Lawrence Teacher Algird Sunskis Dismissed by Ethics Commission

Commission Cites Impounded Report that Deems Sunskis “not appropriate for prosecution.” The Massachusetts Ethics Commission says they cannot prove that Al Sinskis violated G.L. c. 268A, the conflict of interest law, by paying kickbacks on three occasions to Lawrence Public School (“LPS”) employees to obtain LPS contracts. One of the contracts involved the alleged fraudulent sale of […]

EDITORIAL: The Fleecing of Taxpayers – Ultimate Power, No Transparency, No Outrage in Lawrence

EDITORIAL: The Fleecing of Taxpayers – Ultimate Power, No Transparency, No Outrage in Lawrence

VALLEY PATRIOT EDITORIAL MAY, 2013   The corruption and the fleecing of the state taxpayers by Lawrence officials is staggering, and we believe the biggest scandal going on in the state. Yet the media and elected “leaders” on Beacon Hill continually look the other way. At issue: Jeff Riley is the state appointed receiver in […]

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