Pond Scum...updated AUGUST 31, 2011

LATEST BLOG UPDATE ON BARRANCO, MEC, MSEC and ITS LEADERSHIP, CLICK HERE!

Dr. John Barranco, Ed.D

UPDATE: August 31, 2011    Here is another update.  The 10 million dollar alleged fraud could actually be as high as 37 million.  Let's trust Sped Collaboratives and Superintendents to care for the most vulnerable school aged populations and not line their pockets.  Anxiously waiting for indictments!!!  Are school systems places where Sped students are valued and cared for or are they secret bank accounts for school superintendents!  The filth in Massachusetts makes me want to vomit!

UPDATE: AUGUST 18, 2011 Here is another update where pond scum becomes slime.  A big conflict of interest between John Barranco, MEC and a convicted lobbyist.  They are, of course, both in hiding.

UPDATE: AUGUST 10, 2011 
     HERE is a newer update from the state auditor...up to $30 million of bogus charges.   Booze, lavish parties, hotels, etc.  at the expense of the most vulnerable people in society.  Every Superintendent and Administrator on the Board of Directors and higher up employee should be FIRED and JAILED.  They should have known as it was their job. The high life at the expense of disabled kids...no wonder everyone is hiding and not speaking.

UPDATE:  AUGUST 9, 2011

     HERE is a copy of the grand jury jury subpoena for payroll records for our superintendent friends in the Merrimack Education Center scandal....see who is being looked at.  These people were supposed to be the guardians of tne most needs....as GK Chesterton said: "...the young demand justice, the rest of us beg for mercy.:

     HERE is the news report of the federal district court investigation of pond scum...betrayers of the children with special needs.  Many more chips will fall!

       Special needs students are the most vulnerable population in schools and in society.  They appear imperfect in their physical appearance, in their motor skills, in their cognition, in their ability to get voted "most likely to succeed" .  They compete for scant public dollars with Advanced Placement programs, meterology courses and school musical productions.  In the educational scheme of things, special needs programs should be fully funded first and then regular education students should receive a fair share.  It's not the way things happen because special populations have NO voice.  Parents and students are so beaten down by life and non-responsive agencies that they have little fight to give them VOICE.

      Then, along comes a piece of dog-shit like John Barranco, the former head of the Merrimack Education Center and the Merrimack Special Needs Collaborative in Northeastern Massachusetts.  He is accused (good word) of fleecing money from special education funds to the tune of over $10 million dollars
over the past years.  That would buy a hell of a lot of diapers and g-tube sets.

      Some years he received a half-million in salary and bonuses, some years he was a no show, some years he hired his live in girlfriend as a director for one hundred grand , some years he hired his superintendent buddies on his board to six figure positions.  Some years he fixed up his vacation homes, some years he paid for days at the Kentucky Derby with cigars, many years he hosted lavish parties and paid for all his gasoline with the center's monies.  Some years, he bought his daughter a mahogany table for a present.  Oh yeah, and there was a robotic swimming pool cleaner.  He also hired Richard McDonough as a no-show lobbyist/PR person for $80,000.  Oh, by the way, McDonough was just convicted of theft of honest services, etc with the former speaker of the Massachusetts House (Sal DiMasi) a week or so ago for pushing a software contract with Cognos and getting a kickback.  Guess which software the Collaborative and Center use.

       Yes, there is outrage in Massachusetts from the Governor, the Attorney General, the Inspector General, the State Auditor and every other hack in government.  Who was minding the store and providing oversight for the past ten years?  And what about the kids?  With the fleecing of 10 million, what needed services did handicapped kids not receive?  What services were not provided in schools as local districts paid an additional 10 million for nothing....And, people had to know.  Boards of Directors?  Accountants?  Bookkeepers?  Directors of Programs?  They are all equally responsible and equally guilty.  Frankly they should all be fired and all jailed.  Every penny of their assets should be liquidated and given to programs for kids with special needs.  Their indifference is reprehensible.

      So my humble opinion leads me to believe that Dr. Barranco is a piece of shit which needs to be rapidly flushed because the stench pervades the surroundings.  Frankly, I wish that his "privates" would drop into my VitaMix.  Of course, the Center has hired a PR firm to mitigate the blow-out...things, they say in the  Inspector General's report are inaccurate (but, they aren't specific).  Ok, they weren't real Cuban cigars and the amount wasn't 10 million, it was 9.99 million.  I hope Dr. John rots.
     Oh, here's an update: three local superintendents who help steer the money to the Merrimack Ed Center that olde Dr. John headed were rewarded with lucrative jobs there upon retirement.
      "The superintendents who approved the money transfers -- former Billerica Superintendent Robert Calabrese, former Tyngsboro Superintendent David Hawkins and former North Middlesex Regional School Superintendent James McCormick -- were rewarded with six-figure jobs at MEC and extravagant bonuses, according to state Inspector General Gregory W. Sullivan.

"The superintendents taking part in his scheme betrayed the trust of parents, students and taxpayers," Sullivan said in an emailed statement to the Lowell Sun."

Read more:http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_18336940#ixzz1QIEl8xPI

And more filth rises to the surface;

 
And, more detail of the filth within:  who knew and when did  they know?  why did no one report the abuse?

Article from Massachusetts Non-Profits

Perhaps we should start an ex-education superintendents WALL OF SHAME.

      

All facts and data are from Boston Globe, Boston Herald, NECN and the Lowell Sun (links are in body of blog text); opinions are mine!