To the editor:
Last year at this time, the voters of Marblehead overwhelmingly voted for a major change in a School Committee membership desperate for change. Two incumbents each lost by approximately 4,000 votes to two newcomers. In early summer, another incumbent resigned, allowing for a third newcomer to be appointed. Melissa Clucas was that appointee that created a new majority. The change has been positive and dramatic, more than you might reasonably expect.
Melissa Clucas was quickly recognized for her fiscal acumen consistent with being a corporate chief financial officer. She is a strategic financial planner. She understood that we were facing a multi-year dilemma, and so for the first time in Marblehead history a three-year perspective for the school and town budgets is being offered through the override process.
More than the obvious fiscal talents, she has proven to be a great communicator and so with less than a year on the School Committee she was selected to present this complex multi-year perspective at the Town Meeting alongside a municipal representative.
Of equal importance was her role as a team player on the School Committee. Several letters recently highlight the brand new culture of the School Committee that now offers a dramatically new open and welcoming attitude in its deliberations. We cannot return to the past when so much has been done in just one year.
Ann-Marie Jordan offers the community the opportunity to advance the gains being made at the School Committee level. A career educator, recently retired, she brings the perspective of a public school teacher and program coordinator. She was an experienced presenter at her district’s School Committee meeting as an administrator and policy maker. She has the warm personality and welcoming style that this new School Committee thrives on.
Ms. Jordan has been a Marbleheader for much longer than my 30 years in town. Her family is an integral part of our community. Her husband has run a business in Marblehead seemingly his entire life. Her two children are MHS graduates and successful college graduates. Since her retirement, she has served as a short-term substitute teacher in our schools and fully understands Marblehead and its nuances. A vote for her on election day is something I enthusiastically endorse.
The only other choice for School Committee is Sarah Fox. She lost by 4,000 votes last June and was rejected by the joint meeting of the Select Board and School Committee members that wisely appointed Melissa Clucas. Sarah Fox constantly harps on her six years experience on the School Committee. From my perspective as the former nine-year Marblehead superintendent of schools, it was the worst six years I have seen in my 31 years living and observing in town.
This is not opinion but fact. Look at her record. One of two School Committee members on the collective bargaining team that led us into the first and hopefully last teacher strike in our history. One of two School Committee members that wrote the abominable Flag Policy that took forever and is a total failure. Part of the leadership that turned over superintendents and administrators in volume. Part of a School Committee that created the budget situation we are still trying to overcome with this year’s override.
More than these failures was the arrogant disregard for the public’s demand for information and open participation in school deliberations. Look to her May 6 letter to the editor to see the negative vitriol pointed to Melissa Clucas as she describes her as “callous” not once but twice. That letter uses the “twisted truth” that was a hallmark of her years of service.
She talks in great length about an alleged negative vote on the issue of user fees. She would lead you to believe Ms. Clucas voted against user fees. Nay, Nay. The real truth is Ms. Clucas voted not against the $500,000 revenue but against an increase of 3% ($15,000) after surveying other towns and finding out that Marblehead already had very high fees. User fees are an EQUITY issue. It favors students from wealthy families and decreases opportunities from poorer families. They contribute to the idea that Marblehead is a town for the privileged.
In sum, if the schools are to continue the dramatic and visual upward spiral of the present, vote for Clucas and Jordan on June 9. Don’t send us back to the past!
Dr. Philip Devaux
Santry Road
Former Marblehead superintendent of schools (nine years)
