Pickering Middle School (Item file photo)
Is there anyone who wants Lynn middle school students to continue getting an education in the dilapidated Pickering Middle School with its water-stained walls and World War I-era classrooms?
That is exactly what is going to happen if local leaders and residents living off Parkland Avenue cannot come to an agreement over a proposal, endorsed by a 10-1 vote on Oct. 7 by the city’s School Building Committee, to build a new middle school near Breeds Pond.
The choice of woodland near the pond as a school site reflects the never-changing dilemma burdening Lynn when it comes to building new schools. The city, plainly speaking, is land poor.
Marshall Middle School occupies a former industrial site. The other site for a second, new middle school is McManus Field, where there is no outcry over putting a 1,000-student school between Commercial Street and Lynn Vocational Technical Institute.
Breeds Pond site opponents launched a barrage against the proposed site this week by sending state School Building Authority officials a big stack of 19th-century documents outlining, according to opponents, the intended use of the Parkland Avenue land by Pine Grove Cemetery.
If a middle school cannot be built near Breeds Pond, where is it going to go to be built? No one is standing up and saying, “Hey, we don’t need a school” or suggesting one school built at McManus Field is going to house a tidal wave of students rolling out of elementary schools and into local middle schools.
Suggestions for building a middle school on the site of Union Hospital or in Gallagher Playground and Magnolia Avenue Playground range from problematic to patently absurd.
The former site is a battleground for local efforts to preserve acute medical care in Lynn and both playgrounds are well-used recreation locations where a strong coalition of neighbors backed by local elected officials are never going to let a school be built.
Is Breeds Pond an ideal site with minimal traffic and neighborhood disruption? The answer is no. But if the city fails in its bid to get Massachusetts School Building Authority approval for two new schools, the middle-school-siting-debate will become fodder for what is sure to be a highly contentious 2017 election year.
Turning middle schools into a political football will potentially delay by one year, maybe two or more, the push to get new schools built. In the meantime, Pickering students will continue to go to school in a physically deficient building and the city will continue throwing good money after bad to patch and upgrade Pickering.
It’s time for a calm and reasonable meeting of the minds to sort out the Breeds Pond disagreement. If the cemetery is in need of future additional land, then let the search begin to determine how to meet that need even as a school site is carved out of land off Parkland Avenue.
New schools are the single most expensive project a municipality can tackle and, arguably, the most important. Competition among cities and towns for state school building dollars is fierce and state officials won’t wait around for Lynn to get its act together and settle arguments over building near Breeds Pond.
The time for the city to move forward and build new middle schools is now.
