WARREN SHAW WATCH

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THE UGLY TRUTH ABOUT WARREN SHAW 

By D.J. Deeb, M.A., M.S., M.Ed.

Former Selectman/Radio personality Warren Shaw continues to attack against me because of my independent actions on the Dracut School Committee.  He tried unsuccessfully to influence the Superintendent Search in Dracut.  The fact is that I will not allow Warren Shaw and his political cronies to influence my decision-making as an elected official. 

 

In the interest of disclosure, I have absolutely nothing to gain from all of this.  I do not derive my health/life insurance benefits or retirement salary from the Town of Dracut as does Warren Shaw.  I draw a stipend of $2,000 per year for service, which Town Meeting voters have voted to give members of the School Committee and Board of Selectman annually.  I can tell you that it costs me a lot more of my own personal money to campaign for office than what I am receiving from the Town of Dracut.  Unlike the friends of Warren Shaw, I also have no intentions of working as a full-time employee for the Town of Dracut.  I am very content working as a teacher for the Reading Public Schools and as an Adjunct Professor at the various colleges that I teach at.

  

WHAT IS WARREN SHAW’S POLITICAL AGENDA? 

Put simply, Warren Shaw wants to control the decision-making in the Town of Dracut.  This is evidenced by his behavior and his overt and covert attempts to control elected officials in the Town of Dracut.  He calls and bullies elected officials in Dracut on a regular basis.  

 

In the October 2004 Selectman race, Warren Shaw tried unsuccessfully to discredit a candidate by distributing old newspaper articles who was not his choice for the position.  That candidate promptly responded that Warren Shaw “has seen fit to hand out these articles masked in a brown envelope and trying to spread this innuendo because I’m not his candidate.”  (Source: Lowell Sun, October 10, 2004, Page 12).  He continued, “I’ve been told I have the nerve to be up against their candidate.  The last time I checked, it was a free country” (Source: Lowell Sun, October 10, 2004, Page 12).  Despite Warren Shaw’s efforts to affect a different outcome, this candidate was later elected to the Board of Selectman.  The information (lies) Warren Shaw was spreading was immediately discredited.  Warren Shaw has a history of slandering people that he cannot control. 

   

I, for one will not be intimidated by the tactics and antics of this school-yard bully Warren Shaw.  It is obvious that the reason Warren Shaw is attacking me is because he cannot control me.

 

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:

 

Warren Shaw has always been motivated by self-interest.  He certainly does not care about student health, safety, or performance levels.  He has never expressed any interest on these important issues.  Remember, Warren Shaw draws both a pension and health/life insurance from the Town of Dracut for serving as a part-time Selectman for 22 years.  He no longer holds office, Thank God for that!  Isn’t it nice that one can hold office for 20 years in the Town of Dracut and receive these benefits at the expense of the hard-working taxpayers of Dracut?  There is nothing in the bylaws of the Town of Dracut that allow for this.

 

I will put my character and reputation up against that of Warren Shaw any day and anytime.  Unlike Warren, I have not derived any personal life-long financial benefit from my service to the Town of Dracut.     I am very content working as a teacher for the Reading Public Schools and as an Adjunct Professor at the various colleges that I teach at.  I have also not engaged in bullying or intimidation tactics to get things done.  Up until now, I have not even employed the strategy of taking my case to the public, but now, I am left with no other option.  I will continue to speak the truth to the taxpayers of Dracut regardless of the political consequences for me personally.

LETTER TO THE LOWELL SUN EDITOR

I STAND BY MY ACTIONS!! 

 

By D.J. Deeb

 

After having recently lost the Dracut School Committee election by 27 votes, I have been unfairly criticized by Jim Campanini of the The Lowell Sun and former Dracut Selectman Warren Shaw.  Thus, I feel compelled to respond.  There are a number of reasons why I lost my re-election bid for Dracut School Committee, but two of the most significant reasons are: (1) I failed to properly explain my actions and decisions to the voters; and (2) The Sun has been only reporting part of the news over the past few years in order to protect their own interests and to provide protection for current Dracut Superintendent Elaine Espindle.  I am not making excuses.  I accept responsibility for my actions and my own shortcomings.  But I make no apologies for my votes over the last three years.  Jim Campanini remarks that “Unfortunately, he’s [Yours Truly] clouded his legacy by letting windbag politics go to his head, forcing an accomplished superintendent out of a job she loved while putting a new superintendent under the gun.”(The Sun, 5-10-08).  He adds, “Deeb is a meddler, just like the other power-trippers on the board” (The Sun, 5-10-08).   Well, Jim, since you always talk about result-based assessment let’s look at the condition of the Dracut Schools: .

1.       The drop-out rate at Dracut Senior High School exceeds state average and is one of the highest in the Merrimack Valley.

2.       Dracut exceeds state average in the number of behavioral disruptions leading to disciplinary actions involving in-school suspension. Dracut has an In-School Suspension Rate of 8.6% compared to the state average of only 3.4%.

3.       Dracut High students are lagging behind the state and the rest of the country in SAT scores in Reading, Writing, and Math. 

4.       4-Year graduation rates at Dracut High are below state average.

5.       Dracut’s 7th and 8th grade students lag behind state average in the Science and Technology MCAS and English Language Arts MCAS

6.       Dracut’s 5th and 6th grade MCAS failure rate has increased significantly 

7.       The Lakeview Junior High has been on a state watch list since 2004 and was identified for corrective action in Mathematics 

 

It wasn’t “windbag politics,” Jim, that drove my decisions.  I did not use my position as a school board member to obtain jobs for my friends.  It was educational soundness and accountability that I was after.  There have been 9 Junior High Principals in the last eight years and 8 Business Managers in the same period.  Numerous good administrators have left the system because of the management-style of the current Superintendent.  The school morale is at its lowest point ever and this impacts the students adversely as we have seen.

Now, what about the politics in Dracut Schools?  The truth is that Patronage is a monumental problem with the current School Administration.  Superintendent Espindle recommended the creation of and convinced the School Committee that a new position, Secondary Professional Development Curriculum Coordinator (a $90,000+ per year position), was necessary to improve the academic program a few years ago.  She hired a former Marblehead Superintendent (whose contract was not renewed and who left under mysterious circumstances – See Boston Globe, March 26, 2006) to this post.  This was all happening while classroom teachers were not being replaced.  The Superintendent also hired two [2] former Dracut School Committee members (Mike Maguire and Tim Woods), friends of Warren Shaw, to Administrative positions in Dracut Public Schools and made a 3rd former School Committee member (Andy Graham), the Supervisor of Buildings and Grounds, report to her directly instead of to the Business Manager as had been done previously.  Mr. Woods was hired as Athletic Director after he led the charge to give the Superintendent a controversial 6-year contract, negotiated in secret behind closed doors, in 2002 with a $95,000 buy-out clause.  Was there any quid pro quo there?  Mr. Maguire (who used to host a show on Dracut Access Television with Shaw) just happened to land a position as Food Service Director following a nationwide search.  Maguire has been cited by the state for numerous inefficiencies by the State in the Dracut Food Service Department.   The Lowell Sun also states, “Deeb moved to privatize the district’s cafeteria workers” (The Sun, 5-7-08).  The fact is that I pushed to have this option explored.  Privatization could have been and can still be accomplished without necessarily terminating all of the workers.  A private catering firm could cut costs and retain most of the current workforce.  The fact is that the Cafeteria Manager (Mike Maguire), who again just happens to be Warren Shaw’s best friend and Superintendent Espindle’s pick for the job, has been cited for numerous School Food violations by the National School Lunch Administrative Review conducted by the Massachusetts Department of Education in 2006-2007.  Here are just a few excerpts of what the Massachusetts Department of Education said about Dracut’s Food Service program: “Dracut Public Schools needs to establish policies concerning the charging and collection of lunch payments.”Milk served to students “should not be out of temperature for more than 20 minutes.”“The ‘first in first out’ procedure needs to be practiced to comply with the older [food] product being used first.”“The Dept. of Education…are providing School Meal Initiative Training (SMI)…This training is recommended for the Dracut Public School food service director.” 

Jim Campanini further writes that it has been rumored that I want “to become principal or assistant superintendent” in Dracut.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  If I really wanted to be an administrator in Dracut I would have voted to renew the current Superintendent’s contract and worked out a deal for myself as others have done.  Some parents have expressed outrage that I have been critical of the Dracut School Department.  Well, the first step to fixing a broken system is to recognize and acknowledge it.  I do not apologize for that either.  The Dracut School Department is broken and is in dire need of reform.   

It has been further alleged by Campanini that I “tried to hire Matthew McLaughlin [for Dracut School Business Administrator] even though McLaughlin’s qualifications were called into question.”(The Sun, 5-7-08).  The fact is that Mr. McLaughlin was one of three finalists recommended to the Dracut School Committee by former School Committee members May Paquette and Joe Campbell (Both had degrees in Business), then members of the Finance Sub-committee who reviewed the applications and conducted the interviews.  Mr. McLaughlin was the only candidate of the three to produce a letter at his interview from the Massachusetts Department of Education stating that he met all of the requirements for certification as School Business Administrator.  Mr. McLaughlin was certainly well-qualified for the position even though he was not selected.  

The Sun further adds, “He challenged Espindle over incoming High School Principal James Generoso’s three-year-contract” (The Sun, 5-7-08).   HERE ARE THE FACTS: A job description was distributed by the Superintendent and approved by the School Committee, which advertised for 5 years successful secondary teaching experience in the new principal prior to the appointment.  It appears that this was not followed for some reason.  Mr. Generoso had never been a classroom teacher.  As a certified school administrator, I know the requirements for obtaining certification.  It was my obligation as an educator to question this hiring.  How can a Principal hire, manage, evaluate and terminate teachers if he has never been a teacher?  In addition, this was the first time in my 2 years on the school committee that I was given a copy of the Principal’s contract and so when $300,000 + (over 3 years) is at stake, I felt it appropriate to question the procedure and whether legal counsel had reviewed it.  At the meeting, Attorney Kevin Murphy stated that he had not received nor reviewed the contract.  I tried to address my concerns with the Superintendent privately and she brushed them aside.  Thus, I had no recourse but to raise them publicly at the May 14,, 2007 Dracut School Committee meeting.  Unfortunately, this angered many parents in the PTO.  But I do not apologize for raising the issue. 

Now you can see why Warren Shaw and The Sun just want me to keep silent.  Well, that is not going to happen.  Clearly, this is the kind of inefficiency and political patronage that Shaw and Campanini are trying to protect.  If Jim Campanini had bothered to do his homework, he would know better.  As far as Shaw goes it is clear he has his own agenda.  All one has to do is compare Dracut Public Schools to surrounding school districts using the abundant information accessible on the Massachusetts Department of Education website.  Now, what does the Massachusetts Department of Education say about Dracut?  According to the Department of Education’s Massachusetts School-To-College Report, Dracut students attending college are achieving below state average in their first-year GPA’s.  In addition, the percent of Dracut students who took an AP course in high school is 6 percentage points below state average.  This is certainly nothing to brag about.  

Dracut School Committee members have made known their concerns about the conditions of Dracut Public Schools in their annual evaluations of the Superintendent.  The Superintendent’s evaluation scores have declined consistently over the past 3 years.  These evaluations give specific information that I feel should be shared, but Superintendent Espindle has chosen not to release the individual evaluations to the media or to the public.  

The Sun has not reported all of these facts these last three years.  By not doing so, it has done an incredible disservice to the community.  This is a major reason why the circulation of The Sun is dwindling.  The newspaper has its own agenda and has resorted to sensationalism to sell news.   

On another note, Jim Campanini and The Sun have already begun to attack newly-elected committee member Matt Sheehan and his background.   Note to Jim Campanini: Matt’s victory should not be belittled in your efforts to attack me because I would not support renewing the current Superintendent’s contract.  I commend Matt Sheehan for getting so many young people involved in this past election to support his campaign.  I wish Matt well and I sincerely hope that he focuses in on what is in the best interests of the taxpayers and students of Dracut. 

It would have been easy to just toe the line and maintain status quo.  To me, that was unacceptable regardless of the consequences in this past election cycle.  As a Dracut High graduate and career educator, I want what’s best for Dracut schools.  I have never been concerned with what is popular or unpopular.  I have always made the decisions that I believed to have been right.  Because of this I can sleep well at night.  While I respect the decision of the voters of Dracut, I offer no apologies and I would make the same decisions again if I had to.