Monday, January 30, 2017

Replacing Maria



Maria Geryk at 3/31 Finance Committee meeting with Mike Morris, Sean Mangano


The search to replace former school Superintendent Maria Geryk is off to an inauspicious start.  The survey of qualities folks wish to see in her replacement has not gotten very wide circulation.  And as surveys go that's not a great thing.

 Click to enlarge/read

One of the big criticisms of our public schools which we will hear again on the floor of Town Meeting tonight is a lack of transparency and outreach.

The hiring of a "Media & Climate Communications Specialists" (which is not funded in the upcoming fiscal year) did nothing to change that.  Obviously.

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

Town Meeting School vote tonight...
Just say "No"
Let's not repeat the mistake of the 1970s!

Anonymous said...

anyone know who wrote the survey?

Anonymous said...

We need fresh, open-minded leaders who can gather facts, listen to others, build community and talk across differences. Time to hire a superintendent with years of experience as a superintendent with a track record of success. What we have now and have had in the past 5 years is the opposite. Look at how the Wildwood project has been handled since Geryk left. Same old, same old.

Anonymous said...

Vote yes. We need to invest in adequate facilities for the our children.

Anonymous said...

Shout out if your town meeting "representative" has reached out to ask your opinion on the new schools...

[crickets]

Thought so...

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 8:31-

Please complete the survey- great information in your post!

Anonymous said...

Vote yes!!!

Dr. Ed said...

Deadline passed at noon, 12:23.

I personally think that Superintendents ought to be elected, like a mayor is.

Anonymous said...

I believe the School Committee will discuss and agree on the composition of the search Screening Committee at their meeting on Tuesday 7th February.

I believe their role will be to whittle down the applicants from about 10 shortlisted to 2-3 finalists. I imagine the Interim Superintendent, Dr Morris, will be one of the 2-3. We need to ensure the best of the rest are also in the 2-3.

It is important that the general community be invited to apply to be on the Screening Committee in order to avoid any perception of the Screening Committee being "hand-picked" to assist with a pre-determined outcome. If it is filled with district employees, their impartiality could be called into question when choosing candidates to compete with the Interim Superintendent.

Anonymous said...

PLEASE, PLEASE do not make a gigantic mistake and force our town into building this new school. If any Town Meeting Members read this, please hear my cry.

This very expensive plan has not had enough thought or input from the ENTIRE community to go forward. This is a huge amount of taxpayers' money.

Most of today's elementary youngsters will not reap benefits, they will only be displaced while the building goes on as their parents are led to believe this is good for their kids.

For children, this is a huge loss to their individual identities. At a young age, they thrive in smaller, community schools with ample playgrounds, not mega-schools with hundreds of children and hundreds more teachers and staff members.

How many adults are now employed at Wildwood and Fort River?(I would guess close to or over 100 in each building) Add them up as you will be surprised!

Anonymous said...

Try hard to find one with a brain instead of a bleeding heart!

Anonymous said...

Anon 2:17, you should post your comments to the Town Meeting Yahoo group and listserv, so that your precinct TM members can take your comments into consideration!

Oh, wait... you can't. It's for members only. I guess you can hope they read Larry's blog.

Anonymous said...

Question-is this really about " For the kids/education@ or about lining the pockets of spendthrift union agenda junkies with a tax & spend payscale agenda-and not a darn about quality education-the status quo that " Gifted" the region Maria Geryk-Ms Gardner-Kippy Fonsh-Appy and Nina Koch's clique cabal !?@$&$$$

Anonymous said...

1. Never contacted by my TM rep on how I feel about the school vote.
2. Anybody else think Morris will get the job regardless of who the consultant submits.
3. Still no consideration on the impact financialy on seniors on fixed income.

Let th3 circus continue.

Anonymous said...

Please hire a fiscal conservative and someone who eill reinstate discipline. Diversity we got. We need discipline.

Anonymous said...

Yes I think mike m will get the job.. heard a scary rumor that Maria is aiding Mike behind closed doors and through phone calls. I heard the before the first vote failure for the new school.. I haven't been thinking much about the SI until now. Just saying cam Mike be his own man or is he going to get drawn into the group to replace Maria..in title and ideals. I don't want same ole same ole.

Anonymous said...

Hear! Hear!

Anonymous said...

I wonder what the schools will do with the survey. They did an excellent survey a year ago about building a new school and the data showed that making Crocker k-1 and Wildwood 2-6 was the LEAST desirable option by far among 4 options presented. By far the most favored option was to leave Crocker k-6 and make Wildwood the new big double K-6. So what did what the school administration do? Proceed with something that the 450 parents and 137 teachers surveyed thought was clearly the worst option.
So if you want a good superintendent, say you want a bad one. If you want someone with experience, say you want someone inexperienced.....

Anonymous said...

Thank you Town Meeting Members for voting No tonight!

Anonymous said...

Town meeting is cooked after tonight. See all the people of color with hands up in the back? How many spoke? Zero? Because they were so ready to be done and vote. Great representative democracy; if you are white you get to speak. So long town meeting.

Anonymous said...

The contractor that was hired to conduct the nationwide search - Ray and Associates, Inc.

Anonymous said...


My understanding is that the School Committee wants to give it to Mike Morris. That the screening committee has already been reconfigured with mostly school admin employees (Mr. Morris is of course their current interim boss, but oh well..).

Mr. Morris seems like an okay fellow, but is tainted by his deep association with the former ‘problematic’ superintendent (300k payout anybody?) and for pushing hard on the flawed new school building plan that divided the community. I saw the videos of the fall TM meeting where he went on for hours trying to sell the new school building plan. He was haranguing and uninspiring to say the least. You can check out the videos yourself on Amherst Media, be prepared for A LOT more of this.

I wanted this SI search to be a robust, nationwide way competitive process. This town needs a real superintendent!

Instead we get more of the same, a phony rigged process given more to PR search-committee theater.

And the town is paying a consultant $20k to ‘help’ with this search, really? What a waste!

Anonymous said...

Town Meeting doesn't get to pick who speaks. That's the Moderator's job. So don't blame Town Meeting.

Anonymous said...

Climate and Media Specialist, right. I almost forgot about that position. Where is Ms. Ross these days, anyway? Is she still working for the district? If so, what on? It seems like she has been almost invisible lately. She used to run events (remember the movie series she did) and other outreach. Not so much anymore.

Anonymous said...

Mike Morris was a good principal and a good assistant/interim superintendent. However, I feel like at this juncture, the schools really need some brand new leadership, and some new energy, to get us away from the politics that were so rampant under the past superintendent's administration (so many examples, but here's one I keep thinking about: how Phoebe Hazzard's nomination papers to run for School Committee were signed in part by central office staff, and their spouses and children who were not physically there to sign for themselves (some weren't even in Amherst) but the staff signed on their behalf.)

I hope the consultant can find us some good candidates and that one of them will agree to take the job.

Nina Koch said...

To 7:00 AM,

You say you want a robust, nationwide search but you are also upset about paying a search firm to do that.

How do you propose to conduct the search?

Anonymous said...

Here's an idea: anyone but morris.

Anonymous said...

Climate? Is this a joke? Lol. Sure made me laugh.

Anonymous said...

What do you know about Mike Morris? Anything real or is it all what your imagination tells you? Have you ever talked with Mr. Morris? Do you know anything at all about his work as a teacher, as a principal, as an assistant superintendent? Maybe you should get to know the guy before you try to destroy him.

Have you ever actually had a job, or do you just sit in your mom's basement and anonymously attack hard working, honest people who you don't even know?

Anonymous said...

Just want new blood and a conservative. Nothing against Morris. But is he either?

Anonymous said...

Meet the new boss.same as the old boss-we just forked out maybe a million to be rid of-arn't teachers unions great ???!!! ( Must be nice-but NOT "For the kids" Just say'n...????!!!!)

Anonymous said...

Really, why is everyone attacking Mike M? He is the nicest person!

So what, the school admin staff wants to see his permanent confirmation. What’s wrong with that? He is a smart and decent fellow. He has shown loyalty, and that he can take directives from the School Committee, which does manage the SI position after all. I think we all can agree that these are necessary traits for a successful SI in a town like Amherst.

There’s a saying: two many cooks spoil the soup. Parents and way too much community involvement spoiled the school building project. Let’s not make the same mistake with the SI search!

Simply put, the school administration needs to be well represented on the screening committee. That’s just the way it goes. After all they are the experts and will be the ones working the most with Mike in the future.

Anonymous said...

Mike Morris can't see beyond the failed school project.

Anonymous said...

This is sarcasm, right?
"Parents and way too much community involvement spoiled the school building project"?
Are you suggesting we just shut up and let Town hall decide how to spend our money? And say nothing when they want to completely restructure our education system?
And let the school admin pre-fix a supposed SI search process?

Anonymous said...

How about hire good rounded teachers. Give them a budget of $500,000 and a set of standards and let them do the job soup to nuts.

For $500k they can make $100k, have a $50k assistant, $25k a year for plumbers, electricians, cleaning people, any repairs, pay a $50k a year mortgage and have a decent estate, put $20k a year into outdoor resources on this multiacre estate, put $50k a year into new computers and software, a $20k a year furniture buget, $10k a year for utilities, $10k a year for qualified public speakers, $25k a year for field trips. $10k a year for Larry's Property taxes.

I am at $360k a year with these robust budgets with your kids learning on an estate by a well qualified teacher that can pull all this together.

Then lets even throw in $10k a year for an administrator to oversee this one classroom for the town, principal or whatever. They oversee lots of classrooms so they still get paid well. I will throw in $45k so that each kid in the 25 kid class hanging out on this robust estate each day gets a catered gourmet, $10 lunch. Even though we have $10k for public speakers, lets throw in another $20k for musicians, artists, craftspeople, police, firemen and more to come in and give talks with compensation that is really good. $10k for books, Ipads, and more. Remember this is the budget every year.

I am still only at $445k. Your kids could have everything I listed above for less than you currently pay. That leaves around $65k for anything I forgot, anything that goes wrong that is not already covered by the hugely robust budgets above.

The town would be full of many beautiful educational estates that would all get nicer and nicer over time like say Amherst College. Their budgets would be through the roof and we could still consider lowering taxes to accomplish this.

Any decent teacher could pull all this together if you give them the actually money that their classroom produces. Every last stakeholder would be better off, the taxpayer, the teacher, the students most of all, the parents and the bloggers.

Part of my point is that this collective school concept is so far down the rabbit hole, folks are not even doing a basic reality check. $500k a year is a huge budget for a classroom. The reality is that the kids could be educated and the extra could be invested so they don't have to work after age 60 and they could live robustly.

Oh and you will attract the best of the best of the best teachers in the country for less expense than you are paying now.

Peace. Think about it. Reality check time.


Anonymous said...

I Like Mike Morris and if he is the best candidate that is great. If we are set on him then we shouldn't waste on money on a search. At the same time I think he needs to show the coom unity he is his own person and seprate himself from the former situation as much as possible including findING a different answer his answer.. for the Elementary Schools in Amherst. I have heard he encourages parent input and takes parents wishes seriously. I would like to see that happen. Reality is you can't make all the people happy all the time.

Nina Koch said...

To 8:21 PM,

I enjoyed your thinking out of the box, but I am not sure where you get the $500K number from. If you took the current budget and divided it by the number of classrooms, you wouldn't get anywhere near that figure. $50 million/100 would be $500K, but there are way more than 100 classrooms.

Anonymous said...

A regional schools superintendent is supposed to supervise the teachers union school nuts-NOT be one-we all see what happened when they " Gifted " us Maria Geryk-Ms Gardner -Hiza and Kippy Fonshes case -just Say'n-ya Thunk ?!@&$$$