So was the kid who stabbed the other one not from Medford?

I think a school stabbing means that the whole school did it; like a "School Outing", but more violent.

was more about this from the article

"If you can’t handle them in this school district, get them the hell out,”

Just a quote from a frustrated parent

[deleted]

> It seems that the schools/teachers are underfunded and the students suffer.

Medford ranks 115th/399 in per student spending in the state at $20,565 per student. Average spending is $19,513 and median spending is $18,732.

[deleted]

Source? I believe you but would like to look at other districts is all.

> I think the paras are very underpaid and often leave to take positions in Somerville, Arlington and Winchester. Medford HS is in dire need of a rebuild/new school.

A new contract with their union came early this school year and I don't know how it's changed, but at the beginning of this school year my Medford school had classroom para-professionals who were bringing home a whole $16/hr.

Think about that for a minute. No, these aren't licensed teachers, but they are in mainstream classrooms every day, often dealing one-on-one or in small groups with the most vulnerable students in a building. These days, they're absolutely essential parts of a well-run school district.

How the hell do you keep quality personnel in your classrooms when you're paying them less than the line cook pressing your burgers at Five Guys?

https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/statereport/ppx.aspx

I had loaded the data into Excel and figured out the mean and median spending.

thank you!

I agree medford has so much potential but Medford is a weird city. Ive been here over 25 years and the only noticeable change in that time is the new police station and the library which was a gift from mayor Bloomberg. I have never sensed a broad sense of community in medford nor found any city agency to be very helpful or forward thinking. I wont get started on the police but man are they gonna be pissed getting pulled away from their flag detail for this. My sense is the city is run by an old bloc that is more concerned with staying in charge than having an appetite for progress. It reminds me very much of the towns in the Merrimack valley.

As far as the HS, there has seemingly always been violence there as far back as the early 90’s . I felt bad driving by all the students walking home after hearing the news. They certainly deserve better, at a minimum they deserve a safe place to learn. I think its a symptom of weak local leadership and government that is adverse to change and has historically lacked a vision for the city

I'm Medford High School class of '90 and it wasn't a safe school back then. An entire wing (they called it the "Pit") was run by drug dealers and delinquents. It wasn't safe to walk through if you didn't want to get roughed up. I saw a kid get choked to the point of unconsciousness while "security" stood aside and watched. I've always hoped it had gotten better but apparently not

> These days, they're absolutely essential parts of a well-run school district.

Why is this? I'm in my late 30s and never ever had paras in my classrooms as a kid and it was fine. I know they're not paid much, but has this contributed to the rise in education costs?

I know special needs are a huge drain financially, so my guess is that the paras are just a drop in the bucket. I'm looking at this completely as an outsider with no knowledge of how school systems work.

Chances are that if you are in your late 30s then your school wasn't implementing an "inclusion" program - I'm similar in age and I know my school didn't.

Currently schools are instructed to place students in the "least restrictive" environment possible. What this means is that students with disabilities, that in my day would have received pull-out services, are now spending their days in mainstream academic classrooms. This has proven to be beneficial to those students (in my opinion, the literature hasn't yet proven that it doesn't impede "mainstream" students) but in practice it means that instructors are now scaffolding and modifying material to meet the needs of ESL students, learning disabled students, behaviorally challenged students, autistic students, and more all in the same classroom.

It's challenging for a single instructor to handle the multiple different needs, paces, and abilities in a classroom on their own - quite frankly it can be extraordinarily challenging for an instructor, a para, and the occasional special ed teacher to handle a classroom of twenty-five to thirty students even with three adults in the room.

This is only one small piece of the puzzle, but Inclusion programs are where the current pedagogy is and there is plenty of literature to support it (and as someone in a classroom on the daily I'll admit that I'm not sure where I fall on the topic).