THE MELROSE HIGH SCHOOL LEARNING COMMONS has been named for Dr. David P. Driscoll, who served as the 22nd Commissioner of Education for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from March 1999 to August 2007. Dr. Driscoll also served as Melrose Superintendent of Schools from 1984 to 1993. Seated, from left: MHS junior Alison Doherty, Dr. Driscoll, Melrose High School Principal Jason Merrill and MHS junior Sophia Hitchman. Standing, from left: MHS juniors Canlan MacDonald and Jill Frawley, Dr. Driscoll’s granddaughter Amy Rowe and MHS juniors Cadence L’Heureux and John Arens. (Photo by Raj Das, edphotos.com)
By GAIL LOWE
MELROSE—A dedication ceremony to name the high school’s Learning Commons for former Superintendent of Schools Dr. David P. Driscoll will take place at 11 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 18. The public is invited to attend.
“Melrose High School’s Learning Commons is a very special place,” said Dr. Driscoll, “and I am thrilled to have it named after me.”
Without Dr. Driscoll’s knowledge, his family approached City officials to have something meaningful named in this distinguished man’s honor.
“Mayor Paul Brodeur was the person who suggested the Learning Commons,” said Dr. Driscoll. “The suggestion then went to the full School Committee for a formal vote.”
Dr. Driscoll said he was “extremely pleased, honored and humbled.” His family is also happy for him.
Local politicians, city department heads, friends and family, which will include Dr. Driscoll’s wife Kathy and his children Karen, Michelle, Kerrianne and Bryan, will be on hand for the dedication.
There will also be a dedication of graphic panels that tell the story of Dr. Driscoll’s life. On the panels are photographs taken of him with former President George W. Bush, Governor Charlie Baker, former Governor Deval Patrick and Bill Russell, named to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1975 for his achievements as a player and in 2021 as a coach.
What is it about Dr. Driscoll’s life that compelled Mayor Brodeur to name the Learning Commons after him?
To begin, his family history reads like a gripping novel set in the Great Depression.
His mother and father were both descendants of Irish families; his father’s from County Cork, his mother’s from County Lietrim.
The elder Driscoll, born in New York, later moved to Holyoke, Mass. Meanwhile, Dr. Driscoll’s mother lived in Westfield and the couple eventually met in western Massachusetts.
Dr. Driscoll’s father was “very successful” in the silverware business and moved his family of six by luxury liner through the Panama Canal to California, finally disembarking in Glendale. But what followed was a reversal of fortune.
“My Dad lost his business during the Great Depression and limped home—now with eight children and two babies—to Massachusetts in a 7-passenger 1927 Packard,” said Dr. Driscoll.
One of the children was Jack, who one day would become editor of the Boston Globe. Another was David, would become the Massachusetts Commissioner of Education.
Upon the family’s return to Massachusetts, they settled in Melrose where the elder Driscoll’s boyhood friend lived.
“My father wanted to be close to Boston to re-earn the money he had lost,” he explained. “Unfortunately, it never happened.”
In October, Dr. Driscoll celebrated his 80th birthday. He recalls with fondness his days at the Gooch Elementary and Roosevelt Middle schools and his graduation from Melrose High School, Class of 1960. While in high school, he was a member of the 1959 Class B State Championship football team and was voted “Best Natured Boy.”
Dr. Driscoll then continued his education at Boston College where he majored in mathematics. He graduated in 1964.
“Like my mathematics classmates, I was looking forward to a lucrative career in the computer industry, which was starting to boom at the time,” Dr. Driscoll noted. While a student, he worked as a playground instructor in the summer at Lincoln playground. One day a local priest visited him while Dr. Driscoll was on the job.
The priest asked him to teach Sunday School—also known as Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD).
“How do you say ‘no’ to Fr. John Dailey?” Dr. Driscoll quipped.
“I taught boys in grade 8 and despite the challenge of trying to get them interested in something boring like religion, I enjoyed the experience greatly. So much so, that I decided to pursue a career in teaching.”
First, he enrolled in two education courses during his senior year at Boston College, and then he found a student teaching job during the summer of 1964 at what is now Salem State University.
After receiving his master’s degree from then Salem State College in 1967, he married Kathleen Imbornone, a Boston College student from Everett, in 1969. The couple went on to have four children, all of whom graduated from Melrose High School and continued their education at Boston College, Wesleyan, Stonehill and Trinity.
Following certification for teaching, particularly in mathematics, Dr. Driscoll was offered a job at the Western Junior High School in Somerville where he taught math to students in grades 7 through 9. He held this position for two years before former Superintendent Harold Rand offered him a job at Melrose High School.
After five years in that role, he was appointed by Superintendent George Quinn to become business manager in 1972.
“I thoroughly enjoyed my five years of teaching at the high schooI,” he said. “I was a class advisor and cited by several students in the yearbook as their favorite teacher.”
Dr. Driscoll created the curriculum for a new course designed to help students prepare for SATs and was an assistant coach in basketball in 1967 when the school won the state championship.
He was also the first coach for soccer in the Middlesex League.
“Despite our inexperience, that first team went 5-6 with a surprising win over the Bryant and Stratton College freshmen,” he said.
At the time, the school was on double sessions and a new high school was badly needed. Dr. Driscoll became involved in the campaigns to secure voter approval.
The first referendum to build a new high school at Mt. Hood failed but in the following year, 1973, a referendum passed to build the new high school on the Lynn Fells Parkway. During that time, he worked with the Board of Alderman and the School Committee on behalf of Mayors Thomas Sullivan and James Milano.
Dr. Driscoll said he was not aware of what was clearly an underlying ambition to take a leadership role.
“I saw myself as a teacher for life, but my actions were anything but that,” he said. “In Somerville, I organized the faculty in my second year to address glaring deficiencies.”
As an example, the grade 9 mathematics book was a different series than what was used at Somerville High School in grades 10 to 12.
“We submitted a series of recommendations—all very logical and all rejected,” he said.
In Melrose, Dr. Driscoll was on the bargaining team for the Teachers Union and was a key campaign worker for both Tom Sullivan and Jim Milano when they successfully ran for Mayor.
While in his role as business manager, Superintendent Quinn included him in all of his work and initiatives.
“He was mentoring me without calling it that,” noted Dr. Driscoll. “As a result, I attended meetings with other superintendents and became an actual member of the North Shore, Merrimac Valley and Harvard Roundtables.”
He added that he was fortunate that Boston College began an education doctoral program, which did not require a full year’s sabbatical.
“With four young children, I could never afford a sabbatical,” he said. “It was called the PSAP program—Professional School Administrators Program—and classes were held largely on weekends and during the summer.” He received his doctorate degree from Boston College in education administration 1981.
Tragedy struck Superintendent Quinn that summer when his teenage daughter was diagnosed with leukemia and passed away within weeks.
“Unfortunately, Dr. Quinn never recovered (from his loss) and announced his retirement in 1983,” said Dr. Driscoll. He was then appointed as Melrose superintendent of schools, set to begin Jan. 1, 1984.
During his time as business manager and his first five years as superintendent, there were budget challenges, primarily because of Proposition 2 ½, which passed in 1980. The passing of the measure meant the lay-off of personnel for most years until 1990 when Melrose voters approved an override.
“Because of a lack of funds, we needed to get creative and protect basic programs,” Dr. Driscoll said.
He then turned to the community and staff to find ways to move forward.
“We were able to purchase basic textbooks at the elementary level in the four major subject areas, which I learned was the elementary teacher’s number one priority,” he said. “Because I was a high school teacher, the first thing I did as superintendent was to visit every elementary classroom. We also created a city-wide Parent Teacher Organization, the PAL program (Parents for After school Learning) and we had over 100 parents volunteer to run our elementary school libraries.”
Dr. Driscoll and his team also became creative around finance by taking advantage of a state building program to replace roofs and windows on the older schools and a unique low interest loan program that allowed the purchase of computers, playground equipment and badly needed band uniforms.
“We also produced a guide for elementary parents that included a brief summary of the curriculum per subject and the policies for the district,” Dr. Driscoll said.
In 1992, he was elected vice president of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents and would have automatically become president in 1993 except that the newly appointed Commissioner of Education Bob Antonucci had another idea.
“Bob was a fellow superintendent and colleague of mine for a number of years,” Dr. Driscoll explained.
“He recruited me to be the deputy commissioner, and I was appointed by the Board of Education in the spring of 1993 and joined the department in June just as the Legislature passed the comprehensive Education Reform Act.”
He was then assigned to develop the department’s strategic plan to implement the law, which would be his work for the next decade or so.
“Working with the senior staff, we organized the law around higher standards and expectations for students,” he said.
The implementation went smoothly and Dr. Driscoll and Antonucci’s collective experience at the local level made them aware to involve educators in their decision-making.
“In 1994, despite our pretty clear evidence of success, Governor William Weld, having just been easily re-elected, chose to replace his board chair with his 1986 opponent John Silber, president of Boston University,” said Dr. Driscoll.
“Dr. Silber was known as a disrupter, and he did just that,” he said. “Soon, Bob took a position in the private sector and Dr. Silber appointed a businessman and fellow board member as acting commissioner. Because of his inexperience in education, the person made a most unpopular decision and was forced to resign. Dr. Silber then asked me if I would become acting superintendent.”
The two worked well together, getting through the contentious governor’s race when Paul Cellucci narrowly won, and also administering the first MCAS tests.
“Again, despite having been successful, Dr. Silber opposed my appointment as permanent commissioner and the Board was divided 5-4,” said Dr. Driscoll. “Six votes are required by law. The controversy over the appointment became a big story and my five votes were not going to change.”
Ultimately, a newly appointed member of the Board went to the Governor and recommended appointing Dr. Driscoll and replacing Dr. Silber as chair with Jim Peyser, a candidate for commissioner.
The next 10 years proved to be a period of great growth in student achievement in Massachusetts. In 2005, Massachusetts students were the first ever to achieve the highest scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in all four tests—grades 4 and 8 math and English.
By all accounts, Dr. Driscoll is a man of many achievements. Though he is now a retired educator, he has not retired from life. He has headed Driscoll Consulting for the past 25 years and has been fortunate to work for several companies both nationally and in Massachusetts. He has also served on several boards at Fordham University, CenterPoint Education Solutions, Teach Plus and K12. He is currently working with the Alabama Department of Education, but this will likely end in May 2023.
Aside from his work, he enjoys a good game of golf at Mt. Hood and has been a season ticketholder for Boston College football for 50 years.
He and his wife enjoy being with family, which also includes three grandchildren. The couple also enjoys the time they spend in a warmer climate during the winter months.
“We’ve been blessed to be able to travel with both family and friends,” he said. “Life has been good.”
Dr. David Driscoll is the author of a book titled “Commitment and Common Sense: Leading Education Reform in Massachusetts,” published by Harvard Education Press in 2017.