New KIPP project faces opposition

LYNN – The Highlands Coalition and the Friends of High Rock Tower are taking steps to try to halt KIPP Academy from buying the defunct VFW Post 507 property on High Rock Street, land which the school hopes to annex to its planned Lynn campus.The two organizations, along with a neighbor and two members of the Lynn Historic Commission, joined forces by penning and circulating a letter Friday to emphasize their opposition to the KIPP expansion.KIPP, or Knowledge is Power Program, presently runs a middle school at 25 Bessom St. but those students will be moved to the $26 million middle and high school campus in the Highlands once construction is completed in July 2012.The VFW post at 90 High Rock St. abuts the new KIPP campus and could be used to provide access, open space, or as a building lot. Those in opposition contend the VFW land has historic significance to the city and is ill-suited to the KIPP expansion.According to David Gass, co-chairman of the Highlands Coalition, the VFW property abuts historic High Rock Tower Park, a tract previously identified as a Historically Important Landscape by the State Historic Resource.”That the community of Lynn might lose this significant property and future opportunities to reconnect the two parcels and preserve them for the benefit of future generations would be a tragic loss to the entire city,” Gass said. “The unparalleled vistas provided from this natural high point, located in one of Lynn’s most maligned neighborhoods, could be the centerpiece to revitalize this much neglected area.”Josh Zoia, KIPP Lynn founding principal and executive director, said the letter contains several inaccuracies, particularly concerning the land’s historic value, the kinds of students that KIPP enrolls and the purported danger of busing in the Highlands.The letter called attention to the neighborhood’s steep and winding hills, and dangerous conditions presented during the twice-daily busing of the 700-800 KIPP students slated to attend.”Especially in the winter,” said Gass. “But in general, the site is not near public transportation, and the buses will be a problem for the neighbors. Noisy and disruptive, they will only add to the issue of traffic congestion.”The letter stated that steep cliffs surrounding the VFW property pose a safety risk “without the installation of unsightly fencing, which will stare down on the city’s center, creating a fortress effect for those looking up.”A copy of the letter sent to The Daily Item noted that the Highlands is among the city’s oldest neighborhoods and already has lost too much of its architectural history.According to the authors, “The stunning mansions of the shoe barons, the two and three traditional family style housing, which enabled families to produce a secondary income stream, have been lost to investors and speculators of all kinds.”The letter contends that the site is historically and culturally important because it is a place “where Native Americans once dwelled, Spiritualists rallied during the age of Enlightenment, where abolitionists decried the practice of slavery, and factory workers cried out for the protections of labor unions.”Gass said the land should be public space, perhaps the site of a science center and observatory, instead of being part of a private school.”We’re not against charter schools. KIPP has done a good job with the kids it has,” he said. “But the public schools have to take all the ELL (English language learners) kids, the special-needs kids and the problem kids. KIPP doesn’t have to do that. They can pick and choose, and they get lots of private funding while we are laying off teachers.”Gass said other sites are available to KIPP and the city is willing to work with the school administrators.”We did look at the other sites, and none of them are suitable,” Zoia said. “As for the historical significance of the area, we could not have received a building permit unless the state signed off that there was no historic significance.”Th