Charlie Breitrose
Watertown Superintendent Jean Fitzgerald.
Watertown Superintendent Jean Fitzgerald announced she will retire from her position in October.
Fitzgerald made the announcement at the beginning of Monday night’s School Committee meeting.
Many in the audience were taken by surprise by the announcement.
She arrived in Watertown in 2009 as assistant superintendent before being named interim superintendent and finally superintendent.
In August a group of parents called for a vote of no confidence because of their frustrations with overcrowding and other issues.
Many staff and others came out to support Fitzgerald at the August School Committee meeting.
Yay thank goodness
I am ashamed to a part of this community. You are a nasty bunch of small-minded people.
Could be, but maybe this community has a dedicated bunch of big-minded people with high expectations for children and schools.
This town is a mess. Everything…EVERYTHING…gets handled poorly.
Blame here lies with Watertown Strong Schools and Watertown Parents core members. Their neurotic divisiveness and the need to control the educational message in town has led us to yet again be without key leadership during the school year. The fact remains that no one wants to work in this town for long because of a vocal minority of dysfunctional parents who know little to nothing about education.
Really Gary??? ” dysfunctional parents that no nothing about education “??? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the superintendent is not doing her job.NO child in this town should go without a classroom. Sweeping the problem under the rug, hoping it will go away, ignoring and or dismissing suggested solutions are not leadership qualities. You don’t get to speak for my child.YOUR nasty comment sound more like a tantrum than an educated response.
Or maybe blame lies with the superintendent who messed up a lot. She was in over her head her entire tenure. Not sure why she got rid of so many of her staff when she needed them. WPS needs a more qualified super.
Blame here lies with the Superintendent’s own failures to be a leading force for our students. Calling close to 200 parents “dysfunctional” for taking a stand to do what they feel is right for their children is not only misguided, but offensive and ridiculous.
Freedom of speech and expression are fine, but nasty attacks on anyone who chose to participate in civil discussion and who felt that the removal of the superintendent was necessary just shows an ability to have dialogue. Parents tried for year to work WITH the central office administration- the failure of those attempts can be put on no one but the person in charge, who has chosen to retire.
There is an article on Boston.com today about the turnover in superintendents across MA (boston.com broken *again*, so link is to MetroWest Daily News.
I wonder what’s wrong with the system that has so much churn? Good supers don’t need to put up with the difficulty and move up/on and the bad ones look for the door and don’t have to clean up their mess.
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/20160911/superintendent-turnover-high-across-state