Month: February 2026

I for one welcome the visit from the secretary of education, just as I would welcome a visit from any secretary of education whether a democrat or a republican is in charge. I hope the visit gets rescheduled! I frankly was excited when I heard that along with Secretary McMahon that Massachusetts Commissioner of Education was going to come along for the visit. We have an excellent school system in Sutton and it’s important that we welcome visitors into the district to showcase the excellent teachers and staff members along with the quality education we are providing. Along with that visit, I certainly intended to broach conversations about aid and grant funding – I’m sure my other colleagues would do so as well. 

I was equally disappointed when, after superintendent Paget sent her email, that the School Committee was inundated with emails from “concerned” parents all of them with the same wording advocating an “emergency” meeting of the school committee to address these issues. 

Another common theme amongst the emails was a concern from parents about student safety. One parent, Heather Sperring, even mentioned this on the “Sutton Site,” a volunteer-run Facebook group that news about this event was posted to Reddit, an internet discussion platform known for such infamous subreddit discussion forums like /WTF, and  /RegretfulParents. One facebook commenter named Amk Graveson opined as follows and I quote:

I felt the need to review the Reddit post that Mrs. Sperring graciously linked – and I was frankly shocked. Another concerned parent – screen name Lynn Duhh said:

Not terribly disturbing, but in another thread on the same post she replies to a Reddit User called yerbamateblood who asks:

Another concerned parent posting on Reddit – threelittlesith said:

I even saw Tracy Novick, our coordinator from the supposedly apolitical MASC organization, post on the Reddit thread. These types of posts are not helpful and create the permission structure for violence – let me make that clear – when you participate in the name calling and all of this McMahon is rapist, or this group is racist nonsense you are creating a permissive structure for political violence! 

My point is simple – if you care about your kids safety and if you care about the safety of children throughout the district why would you post on reddit inviting the internet and all the craziness that this brings into our town? I’ll answer that one – you don’t care about safety, nor do you care about the safety of the kids in the district. 

Here’s the shameful thing: a group of people coordinated together to stop a visit from the US Department of Education. And they did it because of who is in charge. You can’t be a supporter of the department of education when a democrat is in charge and then a protester during the next administration. That’s not normal, it’s not helpful – it’s cowardly. It doesn’t help celebrate the country, and it certainly doesn’t help the children.

So my advice is this – rather than being an activist, concentrate on being a good citizen – focus on areas where you can agree with people, politely disagree when you can’t. Treat other people the way you want to be treated, and be a good neighbor to your fellow Americans. Maybe that’s the real civic lesson here…