Please see Anthony Meyer's email response to the petition. This is followed by my response to Anthony:

ANTHONY's RESPONSE:

 

I appreciate your reaching out to share concerns. As you likely know, these concerns are quite broad in nature. While you are welcome to solicit support for amplifying these concerns and holding my team and me accountable, I also need to be clear that anonymous petitions and complaints do not carry the same weight to me as those that come with names, faces, stories, and specific concerns. Also, you should know that I do not have any social media accounts. I check the Public Schools of Brookline Facebook page now and again, especially if my secretary let's me know that there are items related to BHS on the page.

I urge you to consider identifying a couple of leaders within your group who wish to share specific concerns with a small group of BHS leaders and me. For now, a few thoughts on some of the concerns you have listed.
Bathrooms - Yes, vaping is a problem and this impacts student access to bathrooms. Our deans and program coordinators have worked with security to increase pressure, issue consequences, and call home when students are in the bathroom in groups and likely vaping.
Special Education - I am not sure how the audit is directly related to BHS special education. I genuinely believe we currently have the strongest director during my nine year tenure in this role and probably for the entirety of my almost twenty-one years here. (Granted, I had a certain remove when I was an English teacher and dean.)
Non-responsiveness - This is surprising to me and disturbing. I'd like to understand more as open, timely communication is a priority for my senior leadership team, deans and program coordinators, and especially me.
Let me know if you'd like to talk on the phone, meet in person, or Zoom. I don't know who you are nor do I likely know the other petitioners. That said, the children at the center of our work are who matter. My job is about taking hard feedback from all stakeholders and turning it into action in support of students.

I appreciate your writing and hope to talk/meet soon.

Respectfully,

Anthony Meyer

Anthony Meyer

Head of School

Brookline High School

 

Pronouns: He/Him/His

 

 

 

MY RESPONSE TO ANTHONY:

This letter is lovely. Thank you for your response.

But all that you write is untrue.

Bathrooms--  Why is vaping still happening?  Why hasn't the problem been solved? This has been going on for years. Clearly what is happening isn't effective.  Parents have offered solutions such as volunteering to help.

Special Education-  If things are going well,  how many times are advocates needed?  Would SEPAC agree with your assessment?

Non-responsiveness-  I suggest you figure out the communication because parents in general feel that you do NOT respond to parent concerns.  Look in your inbox. How many parents have you NOT responded to in the past week?

Here's an idea:
Create a parent and student survey and a teacher survey to get to the heart of the problems.
Find out how many 8th graders don't end up at BHS and have some exit interviews to find out why. Why are parents paying money to send their kids to private school instead of BHS?

Audit-  The audit talks about a breakdown in special education services.  I believe that is happening at the high school.  Again, why not check in with SEPAC?

Here is the solution:
   Survey the Community.
   Hold family forums.
   Look at the data!
   Respond in a timely manner to all concerns or figure out a way to delegate more because you are not responsive in general. Maybe some situations, yes. But certainly not all.
   Evaluate the education programming. Is there programming to address the dangers of vaping?  If you have all these "Days Of" programs, why is racism and antisemitism still happening?

     Why is the school culture so bad for teachers? For example, if I were to do a Freedom of Information Act search of the BHS staff email system, would I not find a ton of heated and unkind and maybe even anti-semitic emails between staff since October 7th?

Please know that this petition and this letter has nothing to do with Marcie.  I have no contact with her directly. Yet, I am aware of this article: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/navigating-a-post-october-7th-world-as-a-jewish-educator-in-brookline/
  How have you addressed the problems in this article?  If I were to be in touch with Marcie, would she say things have improved?

   Ask yourself:  Would you send your own children to BHS and be comfortable?  If so, that's great.  But I think if you were being honest, you probably wouldn't.

I believe you are a good person with a really hard job.  I believe your intentions are good. That doesn't change the fact that there are a ton of problems at BHS that are being ineffectively addressed.  If parents were comfortable with you, why would all this be anonymous.  The culture at BHS is unhealthy.  No matter how you spin it,  things are not okay right now.