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Mob Of Clueless Leominster Kids With Signs Walks Out Of School, Yells At The Mayor About Budget Cuts Who Then Boom-Roasts Them With Facts

Mob Of Clueless Leominster Kids With Signs Walks Out Of School, Yells At The Mayor About Budget Cuts Who Then Boom-Roasts Them With Facts

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So shit went down in the city of Leominster today when a mob of students walked out of school and marched to City Hall to protest budget cuts in the schools. Many have suggested that the students should be heralded for caring enough about their education to take part in a protest. Others saw the way that students conducted themselves and realized that they probably would be taken a lot more seriously if they weren’t acting like a wild mob of savages. But credit to Mayor Dean Mazzarella for going outside, hearing their grievances one by one, and explaining his side of the story:

Ya know what I hate? Whenever kids get together and protest we’re all supposed to say, “good for them for being civically engaged.” Which is fine if they actually know what the hell they’re talking about. But it’s bullshit if they’re only protesting to throw a hissy fit, and haven’t even bothered to do even the most basic amount of research into what they are protesting for. And that’s exactly what this was – a mob of kids who have no idea what they’re talking about. They all marched down there today because some political rival of the mayor on the Leominster City Councilor totally savaged him in this letter to the editor in the Sentinel and Enterprise. It’s actually extremely boring to read, and there’s a 0.0% chance that mob of millenials made it through this paragraph without falling asleep:

Besides the low level of funding, in fiscal 2016 the city charged the School Department a whopping $6.4 million in city services, including a large portion of City Hall expenses. In response to a question posed by the superintendent to the business manager about the underlying justification for $2.3 million in employer retirement contributions, the business manager responded the city does not provide documentation explaining how the employer retirement contribution charge is calculated. This one chargeback expense has increased dramatically by 44.9 percent from fiscal 2011 to fiscal 2016 with no accounting justification.

I’m a grown man with a Master’s Degree who is very interested in local politics. And that was the most boring thing I’ve ever read in my life.

But the gist of her letter was clear – she wants to fund the schools and the Mayor wants to fire all their teachers. Because school budgets are just simple like that.

Look, I don’t pretend to know the first thing about Leominster politics, but it’s clear from reading this that it’s a Gaffney-esque, Tito Jackson-esque power play from a City Councilor going after a political rival sitting mayor. Oldest trick in the book. This was one of the paragraphs that got kids all fired up:

Funding public schools is a challenge that all municipalities face. Schools are a competitive business and are expensive. Quality schools are key to attracting good jobs and for preparing our children and grandchildren to compete for jobs. Leominster, unfortunately, puts its students and community at a disadvantage with its long history of funding schools with one of the lowest percentages of net school spending in the state.

Several students brought this up during the rally. That Leominster doesn’t spend money on schools. So since we know nothing about any of this we just Googled it. Turns out Leominster is actually ahead of 74 other school districts in Massachusetts when it comes to average per pupil expenditure:

I’d hate to see what the protests look like in East Bridgewater. Just sayin. And for what it’s worth most of the schools that spend less money per student than Leominster are pretty highly regarded school districts – Wachusett, Dudley-Charlton, Melrose, Easton, Shrewsbury, etc.

Meanwhile here are the districts that spend the most per student:

Notice a trend? They’re mostly Cape towns (mostly the smaller cape towns with more money and less kids like PTown Wellfleet, Truro, Eastham, Orleans, Brewster), island towns (Nantucket, Oak Bluffs, Edgartown, Tisbury), insanely wealthy districts with tons of property tax revenue (Weston, Concord-Carlisle, Dover-Sherborn, Lincoln-Sudbury) and Western Mass towns with extremely small populations (Mount Greylock, Pathfinder, Northern Berkshire).

It’s really pretty simple. Schools are financed by property taxes. Bigger school districts cost more money because there’s more special needs students, which costs a lot more money to fund. Small, wealthy towns have the most money to play with, and a much smaller and less diverse student population to fund.

That’s also why the lowest spending schools tend to NOT be urban districts too. Urban districts have much higher special ed populations, and since SPED classes require much lower student to teacher ratios, they’re gonna be much more expensive to finance. The lowest spending districts are towns like Northbridge for a reason – it’s not exactly a rich town, but it’s not big so it’s not nearly as expensive to finance. When you live in Weston, and everyone pays property taxes on their million dollar home, you can afford to buy fancier things. Because….math.

So yea, Turtleboy did his research. The students didn’t. I refuse to applaud a mob of kids simply because they threw some signs together and walked out of school without having any idea what they’re talking about.

The bottom line is, the mayor handled it like a boss. Italian people don’t play. That’s just science. First of all, the dude dresses like he’s in the market to buy a NFL franchise:

 

As soon as he starts  the crowd starts mockingly chanting “we can’t hear you.” Which is a really smart thing to do when the mayor of the city comes out to address you, and an awesome way to command respect. SJW training 101.

At the 6:45 mark the mayor shows a kids a copy of paperwork showing that Leominster spends more than $3 million over what is required of them. Kids start chanting “liar” and drown him out. Again, wicked smart.

Then the mayor then hands kids a copy of the budget. Kids tear it to shreds and start screaming like they just accomplished something. And I’m supposed to applaud them just because they protested? Sure thing.

Then this girl from the picture gets up there and asks him “Why did the district lose $5 million?”

Answer – We had to pay $2 million in raises, another million in health insurance, etc. 

Student: Did you guys know that we’re the lowest funded public school in Massachusetts?

Crowd: LOOOUUUDDD NOISESSSSS!!!!

Then the mayor starts talking about money. As he pointed out, money doesn’t grown on trees, so they have three options:

  1. We all take a pay cut
  2. We go back to the taxpayers and we raise their taxes
  3. We cut police and fire

As soon as he mentioned the pay cut the kids went nuts. Because they apparently think the deficit can get funded by cutting whatever the mayor makes for a salary. But in reality he was referring to city workers as a whole, which includes their teachers. The kids just cheered for cuts to the very people they are allegedly protesting on behalf of.

The reaction of the student who he showed the budget to was priceless:

“See, here’s where all the money went.”

“Yea but, I came here to yell!!”

After that Mazzerella pulls the ultimate power move and he says he wants option 1. He volunteered to take a pay cut. What can kids even say to that? Boom. Roasted.

Another kid brings up the $15 million that apparently is stored in a rainy day fund, and asks him why he can’t use that. First of all, these kids have obviously been coached by some adult who clearly doesn’t like the mayor. As if there’s just $15 million sitting around that the city has no intention of using, which can magically cure this. Why didn’t he think of that?? Should’ve just gone down to the high school and asked kids in the lunchroom how to fix Leominster’s problems.

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Anyway, his answer really got the crowd going:

“Your bond rating will fall and it will cost you more money to borrow.”

Proving once again that there is no subject that is more complicated and more boring than a school budget.

Finally at the 22:15 mark a girl just comes out and says it – “Why don’t you just raise taxes instead of cutting our teachers?”

Oh yea, that’s gonna go over well. Meanwhile this girl’s parents are at work trying to make ends meet for her, and she’s telling the mayor to raise their taxes. Nice going.

Then she points out that fifteen percent of Leominster is unemployed. Not sure if there’s any truth to this, but bringing up a large unemployment rate as an argument to increase spending makes TONS of sense. Because the unemployed are well known for their ability to pay property taxes. Definitely.

Anyway, this happens in urban districts every single year. A bunch of teachers get pink slipped in June. Then they find out a month later that they’re coming back because they moved some money around and get to keep their jobs. I don’t know if this is how it’s gonna work out in Leominster, but it happens all the time in Worcester. Is there fat to cut in Leominster? I’m sure there is somewhere. It doesn’t matter where you live in America, there’s always some useless slug of a paper pusher making $120,000 a year to compile meaningless charts. Perhaps students could’ve shown up with a list of things in the budget they think should be cut in order to avoid school budget cuts.

At the end of the day everyone will land on their feet, no one is gonna go broke because of this, and we live in the land of opportunity. So when one door closes another one opens. Everything will be fine kids. Now instead of emulating the idiots you see on TV whining about every perceived injustice in the world, try actually going home, having some fun with the Google machine and actually learn about how a school budget works.

 

 

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26 Comment(s)
  • Stop believing these lies
    June 18, 2017 at 12:31 am

    You all are losers who clearly don’t care about your future because our future is your future and if we are uneducated because the mayor and the superintendent mismanaged our money then America is going to be dumber than it already is the school committee proposed a budget that cut less people but then it was 4% over the absolute bare minimum a city can spend on schools and since Leominster has always only ever done stuff over 1% the mayor vetoed it and is proceeding to fire teachers. We have at least $9 million left from tax money every year that we can donate a little to our school system. I don’t think anybody realizes that if you have a crappy school district nobody is going to want to move to town and Leominster will die. What we did was good and this completely biased article about how we were like a mob of rioters is ridiculous. And our friend Ethan arranged the protest and Jesse told everyone to march down to city hall so it was all student run. Stop making assumptions and telling lies and saying this was all the teachers doing. This was the students protest and we stood up for what we believe in. And I have done my research I have sat down and spoken with school committee members and will be sitting down and speaking with the mayor next week. Stop feeding into these lies saying that we only did it to get out of school because we all wanted to do it because we are upset our extracurricular opportunities and educational opportunities are being cut from our lives and we are upset our learning will be affected because our class sizes will be 30-35-40 students if these budget cuts go through. We were a self run and educated group who were upset with what was happening and tried to stand up for what we believe in

    • Stunt Penis
      June 18, 2017 at 8:09 am

      Another clueless product of the public school system who believes money just comes off a laser printer, has absolutely no clue how municipal finance works, and swallows hook/line/sinker the propaganda of the teacher’s unions who only care about one thing — lining their pockets with union fees — and could give a rat’s ass about the students.

      free clue: people will not want to move to leominister not because of the public school system, but because the city has become a shit-hole, when all its tax dollars are funneled into the teacher’s union and nothing is left over to maintain the infrastructure and public safety.

      If you want to see liberals destroy everything they touch, start taking a look at other cities, like Detroit, as an example.

      • LB
        June 18, 2017 at 8:30 pm

        City tax dollars do not fund teachers’ unions. Teachers’ union dues fund teachers’ unions.

    • Your Deadbeat Daddy
      June 18, 2017 at 1:37 pm

      Shit the fuck up until you’re no longer a fiscal liability

    • getfuct
      June 18, 2017 at 6:09 pm

      They should start with whatever teacher’s tried teaching you English.

    • Pussy Millennials!!!
      June 18, 2017 at 8:42 pm

      OH! This is so precious! A pissant little high school boy trying to stand up for his group’s beliefs!

      So, you, and Jesse and Ethan, were the little shits who organized this? I don’t think it would be too difficult to find out your last names. Thank you for the information!

      Get yourselves informed before you even ATTEMPT to try to effect social change!!!

      Your display at the Mayor’s office just simply shows that you didn’t know what you were doing. If you want to be effective, then do your homework and come prepared. Instead you all looked like a bunch of fools! Especially Shaniqua, or Shananay, or Shitstain, when she proudly proclaimed “I just came here to yell!” Yeah, that does your cause a WORLD of good!

      Good luck with your cause! You need a LOT more to champion your cause! Impudent Wretch!

    • The Executioner
      June 19, 2017 at 11:45 am

      How many “and”s can you get in a long ass run on sentence? I see English class has served you well. Waste of money and brain cells…get back to smoking your blunts.

    • Idiot protestors
      July 19, 2017 at 11:17 am

      If you want anything to happen then you need to rethink your approach. That was a shitshow and if you actually studied facts about your cause your arguments would have had some merit. If you organize something, organize it, don’t just bring warm bodies that have no idea what the hell you want.

  • June 18, 2017 at 12:17 am

    Just a bunch of kids that wanted to skip classes. Happens all over the country. They say they’re protesting something, but usually have no clue what it is they’re talking about.

  • June 17, 2017 at 7:17 pm

    Since back in the sixties, high school student “walk-outs” have been engineered by their teachers. The kids don’t know shit from Cheyenne about the finances of their city, but one day all their teachers skip their usual lectures and tell them about this horrible thing that’s going on that’s going to affect THEM — when in reality it ALWAYS about something that is going to adversely affect the teachers.
    The kids realize, “Hey, a protest! THAT’S COOL! We get to leave school for the day and the teachers are for it!”
    Furthermore, “Maybe I’ll get a chance to hit on XXXXX while we’re out there!”
    Same ol’ same ol’.

    • June 18, 2017 at 12:24 am

      Thank god the never happened at my school. I remember back in the early to mid 90’s when my teachers had a few days of a strike… It wasn’t even talked about with us. The teachers basically said “You’ll have the next few days off. ” and went about their business. I was a young teen. All I really remember from it was “Sweet!! Three days off from school…..And it starts on a Wednesday?!? Hell ya, 6 day weekend!!”

  • June 17, 2017 at 7:07 pm

    To late, 3 welfare generations, they love the government like its their daddy. they want it to wipe their bum and then they go out and have temper tantrums like this. this country is dead and i hope the losers in massachusetts feel the pain for what they have done. Im getting the fuck out of this loser shithole, i hope you kill each other.

  • June 17, 2017 at 6:52 pm

    another round of welfare losers programmed. thats why im moving out. In the old days this was the state of bigmouth losers, now its welfare losers. I hope after im gone massachewedshits implodes.

  • ElJefe72
    ElJefe72
    June 17, 2017 at 5:56 pm

    Guarantee you that an adult was behind all of this. Possibly a teacher or school administrator telling them what a big difference they can make my protesting.

  • I think we're doomed!
    June 17, 2017 at 5:04 pm

    It would be great if these self-absorbed, narcissistic millennials could be made to read this particular blog in the hopes that they might learn something about a town/city budget.

    Maybe even invite some of the more intelligent ones into the Mayor’s office to see what it takes to run a town/city.

    But, it probably won’t happen! It’s the “It’s all about me” generation!

  • Steven Stover
    June 17, 2017 at 4:49 pm

    The future SJW’s were outside making idiots of themselves. The smart kids were inside getting a education.

  • Useless Slug
    June 17, 2017 at 4:31 pm

    Public school systems are bringing many communities, including mine, to the brink of bankruptcy. Our public school system has increased their budget almost 20% in the past 5 years. Granted, some of those expenses are fixed — insurance, health insurance, etc. — but steps can be taken to attempt to control those costs as well.

    Our town has exhausted all our sources of new revenue. We’ve pushed all our revenue estimates to their limits, to the point where there is a real possibility we may not meet projections this year. In addition, our town used $1 million in free cash to balance the budget for next year.

    When cutting the school budget was mentioned, the schoolies ran the ‘backpack express’ and got all the mommies to show up en-mass to vote for the school budget, leaving the town in the precarious position where it had to either spend reserves to fund its budget, or basically shut down town government to bare minimum staffing levels. Attempts to pass a 2 1/2 override to fund the town budget have repeatedly failed, forcing it to use reserves to maintain minimum services (public safety and state-mandated positions).

    Next year, our town will be forced to start to spend its stabilization fund in order to maintain those same services. The school budget is probably going to go up another $3 million, but our annual prop 2.5 levy increase is less than 1/2 of that.

    Absolutely insane. The schools are addicted to spending like a druggie is addicted to crack.

  • Hanginpossum
    June 17, 2017 at 4:17 pm

    In case anyone has ever wondered what community organizers do it is this.

  • June 17, 2017 at 3:06 pm

    What’s even more disturbing about the Leominster situation is that the city councilor who wrote the editorial in the paper calling out the Mayor for not submitting the school committee budget told him in an email the week before to submit his budget, not the school committee budget that would have given the schools the additional funding the kids were fighting for. He asked all city councilors on June 9 – do you want me to send down a balanced budget or the school committee budget with millions more for schools. She was the first to respond to please send down his budget. Mayor posted the picture of her response on FB.

  • Matt
    June 17, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    I was stuck in the resulting traffic from that on my delivery route yesterday afternoon. I honestly thought it was a graduation march or something, but nope… just some overconfident punks protesting something they know nothing about

  • Keir Darcey
    Rochambeau
    June 17, 2017 at 1:17 pm

    lol
    Hands budget to kid, autistic screeching ensues.

    • True Reality Speaks
      Tired of Don't Snitch Pussies
      June 17, 2017 at 8:18 pm

      You make autistic kids look like Einstein, douchebag.

      • Keir Darcey
        Rochambeau
        June 18, 2017 at 7:06 pm

        Yeah, those autists are so full of themselves. Einstein… as if.

        He. Gave. Them. The. Budget.

        Also: Einstein was okay at math, I guess.

  • Savage Squaw Bitch
    June 17, 2017 at 1:11 pm

    I hate teenagers these days. Disrespectful little douchebags they all are. I’m glad I’m not that mayor, I’d have punched one or two of them little bitches.

  • Mongo Shepard
    June 17, 2017 at 12:52 pm

    The Mayor should have walked out and said “Look around you children. You are all retarded. Your school system has failed you. We are slashing the budget and starting from scratch. Each and every one of you should be ashamed for taking part in this self-fulfilling prophecy. Oh and save yourself the time and money, don’t bother applying to college.”

  • Worcester Trapper
    June 17, 2017 at 12:28 pm

    LOL. Stupid brats. I worked as a teacher’s aide at Leominster and all the kids
    are dumb uneducated snobs. You want to see a bad school take a look at the
    ones in Detroit. Whole crowd should’ve been maced.

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