Melrose Community Rallies Around Embattled Superintendent

MELROSE, MA — Vocal support for Superintendent Julie Kukenberger is growing after backlash over her decision to remove Halloween celebrations intensified into highly personal attacks.

Kukenberger has been under scrutiny for days following her letter to parents Friday confirming the district would no longer revolve fall celebrations around Halloween. That scrutiny quickly turned to outrage amid accusations that Kukenberger was "canceling" Halloween — something she denied at Tuesday night's School Committee meeting — and that outrage gave way to vitriolic online attacks.

Community members have come to the superintendent's defense as she continued to be targeted this week.

"Dr. K's attempts to create an inclusive and safe school environment for Melrose students to learn and grow should be admired, not vilified," local parent Justin Sharaf said. "While everyone in the community may not agree with her methods of achieving the goal of inclusion, the very public and personal attacks on her and her family have crossed the line, and those responsible owe her an apology."

Jodi Rosen has a child in first grade here and teaches in Boston, where she said her school doesn't celebrate Halloween since its such a drain on instructional time.

"Dr. K, although maybe her delivery should have come sooner, it didn't really affect me because I'm not dressing my daughter in a costume to go to school. She's going to trick or treat Friday from 3-5 [at the downtown event] and Sunday."

Rosen said she reached out to Kukenberger to let her know she has her support.

"Perhaps the superintendent made a mistake in not asking teachers or the community, but I don't think it's necessary for us to be asked before every decision is made."

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Jackie Hamilton has been a Horace Mann parent for nearly a decade. While she admitted to "fond memories" of Halloween parades, she thinks equity and inclusion need to be prioritized — even when it's uncomfortable.

"If we want to live up to our motto of 'One Community, Open To All' then we have to do the hard work of seeking out these issues, admitting where we have failed in the past and making changes," she said. "That takes strength and bravery and forward thinking, which Dr. Kukenberger has shown on this issue. I hope the entire Melrose community can join me in denouncing the hatred that has been shown to her throughout this debate and work together to continue to address these issues as they come up in our schools and city."

School Committee Chair Jen McAndrew on Tuesday night gave her full-throated support of Kukenberger, and she was followed Wednesday by School Committee member Ed O'Connell.

"There are rarely easy decisions to be made by a Superintendent of Schools. The ability to make the hard decisions - the often unpopular decisions - and the courage to bear the brunt of public vilification comes with the job, one supposes," O'Connell wrote on Facebook. "Still hard to watch, up close. Of late, in particular, the ugliness and vitriol have been wholly out of proportion to the 'issue' at hand."

The Melrose Racial Justice Community Coalition commended Kukenberger for what they said was her work toward inclusion while condemning the worst of the rhetoric that came from a blog post Tuesday.

"The work of equity is messy and there's room for healthy debate and disagreement on many issues," the RJCC said. "But the outsized protest about this decision smacks of privilege.

"What's most concerning at this point is that the over-the-top reporting of Dr. Kukenberger's decision by Greater Boston news outlets has, inevitably, invited trolls into our community. The petition to reverse her decision has been clogged by hundreds of signatories who don't live in town and, most concerningly, a far-right website has now endangered Dr. Kukenberger's family by posting pictures of her young daughter and information on where she goes to school.

"This kind of intimidation towards a city worker, and the embrace of it by some members of our community, is totally unacceptable and we condemn it completely."

It's not just those in favor of Kukenberger's decision denouncing the over-the-top criticism. The group of parents that planned a costume parade to "save" Halloween in Melrose are lamenting their cause being hijacked by those who went over the line.

"There's been so much attacking that people were losing exactly what the petition was about," Cal Finocchiaro, who created the petition to "keep Halloween for our kids" that has 2,500 signatures, said.

The parade, which had been scheduled for Tuesday but rained out to Thursday, has been canceled and was replaced with a costume drive meant to provide costumes to the elementary schools. (The drive will be at 2 p.m. at the Melrose Common.)

Parade organizers said they were satisfied by Kukenberger's acknowledgement Tuesday night that Halloween was not canceled.

"This was more in line with our initial intent which was to get Halloween back, and this help stock the schools with donated costumes," Finocchiaro said. "We don’t want to cause more animosity."

Finocchiaro herself became the subject of heavy criticism for what people said was her role in stirring the controversy that reached as far as The Boston Globe and Fox News, something she flatly denies.

"I'm not in the business of personally attacking people," she said, insisting she and other parents were just hoping to keep Halloween in local schools — not generate any hate or division.

"I wanted the attention [for Halloween,]" she said. "But not like this."

Mike Carraggi can be reached at mike.carraggi@patch.com. Follow him on Twitter @PatchCarraggi and Instagram at Melrose Happening. Subscribe to Melrose Patch for free local news and alerts and like us on Facebook