MISTAKING PAINS

HERE IS A COMMENT I GOT ON THE POST " YOU DON'T SAY":

Allow me to intercede as one of the teachers who left the Ford School this past year. I consider myself a good teacher with strong educational values for the good of our children.

When I first began at the Ford School in September 2014, I was witness to the disastrous state of the school and educational direction left by past administration. It was all I could do to stay those first few months, yet I stayed for the sake of your children. If you are not in the field of education, then you truly have no idea the dysfunction that was going on behind the doors at the Ford School. Without revealing the atrocities that I witnessed during those first months, I can tell you unequivocally that Principal LaRivee is a much needed visionary for that school. 

I continued my employment at the Ford School, only for the opportunity to work under the direction of Principal LaRivee in helping the school establish better educational and classroom standards. Principal LaRivee has and continues to make changes that will raise the level of education for those students. With her many successful years of teaching and administration, Principal LaRivee always has the best interest of her students in mind. 

If you are lucky enough to be a parent at the Ford School, you will begin to see the changes in curriculum, professional development, and learning that are taking place. The curriculum changes so far include full staff training in teaching comprehension strategies and a new reading program for the primary grades. Assessments are being reevaluated, books are being leveled, and instruction is being differentiated. That is what good teaching should look like. Your children should have been receiving this type of education long before Principal LaRivee’s administration. Thankfully for the children of the Ford School, she is now their principal.

So when you stand outside the school and make judgment based on the hear-say of students, disgruntled employees, or even worse, those who want to send the education of these students backwards to past administration due to lack of current educational standards or lack of wanting to work hard for our kids, then please think twice. Making change is not always easy, but it is now a necessity for the academic standards of the students of the Robert L. Ford School. Those students have the right to an education that will get them college and career ready in the years to come. 

If it takes a few weeks for some of the new systems to fall into place, then please consider taking the high road of respect and patience. The Ford School is a Title 1 school with 92% non-white students, many of whose parents speak little or no English. Try communicating the new breakfast schedule and routine to the families of more than 500 students in more than 6 different languages and tell me if you will be 100% successful on the 4th day? 

I applaud Principal LaRivee and her commitment and dedication to making changes for the good and benefit of the health, education, and well-being of the Ford School students. You are fortunate to have such a great leader. – Eileen Catizone

First let me compliment a very well written piece, very convincing even if NOT completely TRUE. May I have you recipe for KOOL-AID? You talk about the new principal as being a visionary I would agree
, only that's it's "tunnel vision" and she is seeing through someelse's eyes. What school district did she come from? Wasn't it from a place that was doing worse than Lynn. Being at Ford for a semester already, how could see not see there would be problems with the breakfast? Do the math. Sure, we can allow time, I mean as long as you provide water, the kids won't actually die from starvation for a couple of weeks.