Tech teachers eye Lynn school board seats

LYNN – With budget cuts looming at Lynn Vocational Technical Institute and across the School Department, two former LVTI teachers have joined the race for School Committee this summer.Retired LVTI science teacher Harrison Harley III and auto body instructor Richard B. Starbard are two of the nine candidates who will be vying for six School Committee seats this November, joining fellow first-time candidate Gilbert DeCosta and all six current School Committee members, John E. Ford Jr., Vincent Spirito, Patricia Capano, Jeff Newhall, Donna Coppola and Maria Carrasco.The deadline to pull papers for elections is June 26 and the last day a candidate can register is June 29.A Vietnam veteran who was awarded a Bronze Star, Harley retired from LVTI earlier this year after 10 years teaching at the school.The 66-year-old has experience teaching and providing training in a variety of settings, including the Newton Public Schools as a library/media specialist and social studies teacher and as director of media service at Babson College.Harley’s next employment involved managing curriculum design and development departments for the three largest education contracts ever awarded, according to his Web site.He was a training/aides manager at Telemedia, where he implemented a new training program for the Royal Saudi Navy, a director for Curriculum Resources and Instructional Technology at ITECO, where he developed and implemented curriculum for the $500,000,000 Jubyal Industrial Resources Institute and at Raytheon, as Director/Producer for the Royal Air Defense Force Instructional Television Facility. For nearly six years he specified equipment for shops, science laboratories and classrooms and designed curriculum materials providing English Language instruction and technical training to Saudi Arabian desert nomads.With a broad and diverse history of experience, Harley is hoping that he can use his expertise to improve programs for non-English speaking students in the city’s schools and says he is looking to add some common sense to a school department he says is cutting the wrong programs.”There is a pretty strong population segment in which our school system’s programs are not appropriate,” he said. “And it seems that we are cutting in all the wrong places. Now, I haven’t looked too hard at this year’s budget yet, but what I do see is a lot of really fantastic things going on here, dynamite programs, and some that aren’t working as well. I just think if you are going to do budget cuts you have to prioritize how you cut.”Another area Harley is hoping to tackle if elected is that of discipline and conduct in the schools. He says the current way of handling student discipline problems is outdated and needs to be changed in a way that will help the students – not put them out on the street to cause more trouble.”We are up against some discipline issues and the population of students that are in trouble are going to drag down the good kids, so we are going to have to address that,” he said. “The discipline system seems to be causing a problem. It makes no sense to suspend a kid for two days for skipping school. That’s just common sense stuff right there.”For Starbard, who is leaving the school after 13 years to focus on his successful auto body business, Rick’s Auto Collison Inc. in Revere, his first foray into politics is about getting a voice for the city’s only vocational school on the committee.”I have experience just out of the classroom and it seems like there is no one on the administration or the committee that comes from a tech background,” he said. “I think it would be good to have someone from Tech in one of those six spots on the committee given the amount of money that the city puts into that school.”A lifelong Lynn resident and LVTI grad, Starbard, 45, has been involved with the Lynn Public Schools for almost two decades both as a teacher at Tech and through his two daughters who attend English High School as a senior and a freshman.