To the editor:
Like many Lynnfield residents, I am extremely concerned by the School Committee’s decision to terminate LHS Media Specialist Janice Alpert and LPS Nurse Coordinator Toni Rebelo and eliminate their positions. Others have spoken eloquently on the ways these positions are essential to LPS health, safety, and education. These decisions also highlight serious flaws in the town’s process for setting the budget and priorities for our schools — a process which clearly lacks the values of transparency and communication, which the School Committee has promoted as part of their current operations.
Transparency does not mean that documents are posted to a public web site or bulletin board after the decisions are made. With transparency, major decisions are discussed and documented in open meetings, there is time to incorporate feedback from outside sources, and it should always be clear who signs off on each decision. And yet this year, it seems as though all decisions for the school budget were made in a single week, starting with a number established by the Select Board and town administrator, discussed by the interim superintendent, acting School Committee, and school principals, and finalized without any public input.
There also seems to have been little to no input from school staff, teachers, or other boards in town. Nurse Coordinator Toni Rebelo was “left in complete disbelief” and Media Coordinator Janice Alpert was “shocked, saddened, and quite frankly gutted” by the decisions to eliminate their positions. (The decision to eliminate the nurse coordinator position was apparently a unanimous decision by the School Committee.) To my knowledge, there was only one meeting between the School Committee and a subcommittee of the Finance Committee, and it was more than a week after the School Committee meeting where they presented the budget and staff reductions. And so the budget and these decisions were finalized by the town before public input, and the School Committee was left to communicate the impact of these budget decisions to LPS teachers, staff, and families.
However — real communication is not just informing the public of decisions that have already been made. It involves active listening, incorporating feedback when making decisions, and a collaborative mindset open to other opinions and needs. Politely saying “thank you for speaking” after someone takes the time to send a message (or speak at a meeting) is not the same as showing that you’ve heard the speaker and, where necessary, changing outcomes based on the discussion.
It is clear that the discussions between the Select Board, town administrator, interim superintendent, and five members of the current School Committee matter most in budget decisions. Not the 19 LHS students, alumni, and parents who spoke so eloquently at School Committee meetings about the essential need for a functioning High School library, and Ms. Alpert’s transformational effect on their lives. Not the eight nurses, parents, and staff who spoke about the need to prioritize health and safety at our schools by retaining the nurse coordinator position. Not the Lynnfield students and parents who sent public and private emails and letters asking the School Committee to reverse course. Yes, there have been “public comment” sessions and statements addressing feedback, but there does not seem to be any willingness to change decisions based on overwhelming feedback and data that illustrates the essential nature of the LHS media specialist and LPS nurse coordinator.
For those unaware — the School Committee can ask the town to pull funds from other departments, and even ask for an override to pay for any funds necessary to successfully run the schools. In 2022, Town Meeting approved a $63.5 million rebuilding of Town Hall and other public-safety buildings — yet this spring, the town can’t find $100,000 to fund the LHS media specialist position. I believe by not even suggesting ways to increase the budget, and by insisting that the cut positions will not be restored even if there was funding for them, the School Committee is saying that this budget (with all the documented cuts, and the interim superintendent spread across at least three jobs) will allow the school system to operate as successfully as possible next year.
It’s possible that by the time this writing sees print, the School Committee will have reversed their decision on some or all of the staff reductions this year. After all — the School Committee discussed the outdated notion of “class size” guidelines last November, and in this year’s school budget presentation, three out of 19 slides and several minutes of discussion reestablished established detailed class size recommendations for each school. I also recognize that this was an unusual year, with the departure of the previous superintendent (an employee given a unanimously positive review last September, who agreed to part ways with the district last month) compressing the budget schedule from several months down to one week of internal discussion.
However — as a parent of Lynnfield students, I recommend that the School Committee and interim superintendent take a hard look at the operational issues this year — a year where there is a clear appetite for change and improvement. There will always be a need to meet the budget established by the Select Board and town administrator, but it should always be secondary to the higher goal of serving staff, teachers, families, and students by operating the best version of the Lynnfield Public Schools.
Joe Gallagher
