Saugus schools under fire for planned hire

SAUGUS – The blossoming good will between the School Department and the town could be in jeopardy since word is out that Superintendent Richard Langlois plans to hire a vice principal for the Veterans Memorial School.School Committee Chairman Joseph Malone confirmed that the committee has given Langlois permission to post the job but said no one has been hired yet.Town Meeting member Peter Manoogian said if that is the case the School Committee has some explaining to do.”This position is totally contrary to what they presented at Town Meeting,” he said. “It’s a 180-degree turn.”Langlois was not on board when the School Committee and then Superintendent Keith Manville made their plea for additional funding before Town Meeting.The schools ended up with an additional $75,000 for reading teachers as well as a deal to bond $300,000 for new textbooks.During the budget debates the School Department contingent also raised a host of other concerns related to budget cuts. The list included the fact that 58 staffers had been laid off, user fees were up and supplies and supply money had run dry. Also high on the list was the fact that the Belmonte Middle School had taken a significant budgetary hit losing 12 teachers and its team teaching concept. The school was busted down to elementary school classification because it didn’t have enough staff to provide the time and learning needed for secondary school classification.Manoogian said hiring an administrator instead of restoring teachers or academic programming was a mistake.”There is going to be a group of people that will say ‘I told you so,'” he said.Because the School Department has an autonomous budget Town Meeting has no say over how it is spent, only the amount appropriated.Malone, however, said there is nothing devious about the hire, it’s simply that with nearly 700 children at the Vets School Principal Uri Harel needs a hand.The Vets School houses many of the district’s toughest Special Education needs and Harel will be taking on the job of organizing the district’s Title 1 grant. The grant from the U.S. Department of Education is aimed at improving the academic achievement of the disadvantaged.”Uri is a very creative guy but he really does need a hand,” Malone said. “There is no payroll padding.”The position will be funded through savings made in the Special Education Department. Malone said Pupil Personnel Director Cynthia Joyce will be taking on responsibilities that were previously handled by outside attorneys, which will free up money to pay for the vice principal position.Malone also called the position part of Langlois’ overall vision for the department.”He really has an agenda,” he said. “I believe Richard Langlois is an outstanding leader and he has a plan.”Manoogian, however, said the money might have been better spent putting foreign language back in the middle school, lowering user fees or putting teachers back in the classroom.And he said the committee should have made the decision with a public debate at a public meeting.Malone pointed out that while the School Department handed back $268,000 of unspent funding that could be used to pay off the book bond, it did hire reading teachers with the $75,000 from Town Meeting and the district is not administrator heavy.”We are barebones administratively,” he said. “This is not about whining about money it’s about reallocating money to get the most bang for the buck.”