In the United States, the average price of a “Big Mac” is $5.15.

At Walmart, you can get a “Beyond Burger” (plant-based) for $9.68 a pound.

But did you know the pièce de résistance of all overpriced burgers can found right here in Lowell, Massachusetts, where the Lowell School Committee recently purchased a “Nothingburger” for around $125,000?

Attempts at humor aside, there is nothing funny about the fact the folks elected to oversee Lowell Public Schools spent a lot of taxpayer money on a wild goose chase, especially when you consider the goose being hunted left for Philadelphia in the middle of chase.

To briefly recap, in March of 2023 the Lowell School Committee formally authorized an outside investigation based on alleged unfair or…gasp!…illegal hiring practices by the Lowell Public School Administration, at the time headed by Public Schools Enemy #1, Superintendent Joel Boyd. The firm hired to conduct the investigation was Brody, Hardoon, Perkins & Kesten, LLP. The report was completed October 24, 2023, though it wasn’t revealed to the taxpayers who funded it until this past Monday. (a link to the full report is available at the bottom of this article)

At the time, and in the buildup to that time, many of us openly wondered whether the investigation was really just a poorly disguised effort to “get Joel Boyd.” But there were serious matters that could open the city up to lawsuits, we were told, so the show must go on.

And go on it did. For a long time. A very long time. Long enough for Joel Boyd to leave Lowell for Philadelphia in the interim. Long enough for BHPK to run up the six figure price tab that could have been even more expensive had a proof-reader been contracted.

Ok, Ok! Cheap shot there. Lord knows I’ve published many an article with typos on these pages. Fortunately for you, those articles don’t cost $125,000 to read.

By now, you might be wondering exactly what this costly investigation uncovered. This is where our “Nothingburger” comes in.

The most common phrase found in the 82-page document ($1,524.29 per page in case you’re wondering) is; “the Investigators do not find by a preponderance of the evidence that there was a policy violation (insert name of the violation and job position in question)…”

The phrase popped up right at the outset of the findings:

It popped up here:

And here:

Here, too:

I’ll spare you and myself the boredom of posting the other 32 times that finding occurred, but you get the drift. 36-times reading that phrase was enough for yours truly to declare it a whopper of a nothingburger.

In fairness, there were a few occasions where the claims “fell outside the scope of the investigation” and two occasions where the heinous offense of the person who didn’t get the job wasn’t notified about not getting it. But I’m pretty sure this isn’t what the “Get Joel” crowd was hoping for.

Hell, it’s a good thing Boyd left on his own, or this investigation might have justified a significant pay raise for him!

Bottom line is this: when the next School Committee is sworn in weeks from now, how about they get down to investigating the academic performance, or lack thereof in many cases, of Lowell’s public schools students.

The money wasted investigating why someone’s BFF got hired over someone else’s is a slap to the face of taxpayers who fund a school system where about 3/4 of its third graders can’t read to level (stay tuned for an upcoming InsideLowell series on that data point just presented and what it means)

I said it back when this saga began playing out, and I’ll say it again; This city deserves a school committee dedicated to education, not one constantly playing Superintendent roulette, making sure friends and family are hired/promoted, or giving air to sour grapes.

Come January, the committee will see Dave Conway, Fred Bahou and Mayor-to-be Danny Rourke join Jackie Doherty, Connie Martin, Dominik Lay and Eileen DelRossi. Here’s hoping they put students above politics.

Click here to read the full BHPK report