Dracut Forum

Approving a Draft Budget for the next fiscal year, the School Committee has approved a proposed budget of $28,610,390.00, an increase over last years budget (after paybacks and transfers back to the town) of 2.77%.
A significant issue, of course, is the stimulus money that cannot be depended upon for the future, as well as increases [...]

by Erin Smith, Lowell Sun
DRACUT — Evaporating federal funding, budget constraints and struggling test scores are just some of the issues that Dracut’s next schools superintendent will face.

Schools Superintendent W. Spencer Mullin retires in March and school officials are predicting that looming budget problems will face both interim Superintendent Elaine Espindle and the next permanent [...]

Superintendent Spencer Mullin has rejected any call for him to leave his position early. A story in yesterday’s paper basically says that he’s submitted his retirement paperwork as of a certain day, and he plans to follow through with the final months of the position:
From the Lowel Sun article:

Last month the committee asked school attorneys [...]

By Erin Smith, Lowell Sun
DRACUT — The head of Dracut schools has rebuffed attempts to throw him out of the job before he retires in March.
“Spencer wants to stay here. He wants to finish out his contract,” said School Committee Chairman Matthew Sheehan.
Last month the committee asked school attorneys to negotiate with Superintendent [...]

“In summary,” Dr McNamara said during tonight’s meeting of the School Committee, ” there was a reporting error — a rather substantial reporting error.”
“There is no fear of Dracut losing $1.4 million in state aid,” he continued, as he explained that an end of year report was incorrectly filled out.
This had caused a letter from [...]

That was the question this week, when the town received a letter from the state Department of Education threatening our Chapter 70 funding.
I understand that a mistake was made by Superintendent Spencer Mullin’s administration in filling out the end of year reports to the state that reported that we did not use $1.4 million in [...]

Dennis makes the point much more clearly in his Lowell Sun column this morning than I have in the past that Superintendent Spencer Mullin’s departure is very similar to Elaine Espindle’s. The people claiming that he was “pushed out” look to be the same people who drove Espindle to leave.
I can agree that we haven’t credited [...]

Following a short discussion, where member Ron Mercier and Dr Mike McNamara preferred continuing the search process for an interim Superintendent via interviews and then a selection, the board voted 4 to1 with Mercier the only member voting against to select and start negotiations with former Superintendent Elaine Espindle for the position of interim Superintendent.
Mr [...]

In his latest rant in the Valley Patriot, DJ Deeb crawls out from the dark history of politics of Dracut to publicly attack the current school board.
You have to wonder whether this thing was written by the Nashua nut, in that it is filled with innuendo, unsubstantiated “connections” and an obesession once again with Warren [...]