Lynn moms: School rule hurts whites

LYNN – A Lynn mother has started a petition drive to overturn a controversial public school policy that she maintains gives preference to non-whites when a student is trying to switch schools.Patricia O’Malley, who is white, believes her daughter was a victim of reverse discrimination when her attempt to transfer from Marshall Middle School to Pickering Middle School was denied.”It’s just not right that you can base this solely on race,” O’Malley said during an interview at her home this week.The policy in question is Lynn’s Public Schools Voluntary Plan for School Improvement and the Elimination of Minority Isolation approved by the Lynn School Committee and the Massachusetts State Board of Education in February 1988.According to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts general law chapter 71, section 37D, “racial isolation” occurs when more than 30 percent of the students are non-white.So preference is given to minorities trying to switch schools under the policy.But the Department of Education website states just 24.5 percent of the students in the Lynn school system are white, as opposed to 49.4 percent Latinos and 12.4 percent blacks.”If that is not racial isolation, I don’t know what is,” O’Malley said. “The system is no longer working and needs to be fixed.”School committee member Rick Starbard said he too thinks the policy should be changed.”It sounds ridiculous (that) even though white children are a minority they are still viewed as a majority,” he said.While most schools are racially unbalanced, there are some schools like Pickering that are more equal, says Starbard, and if child wants to attend to a school like Pickering and they are white, they will be denied so they don’t raise the white quota.”Personally, I don’t agree with it. If anything a transfer should be based on a lottery,” Starbard said. “I am sure 20 years ago this policy made sense ? With the Lynn population being what it is, it almost reeks of reverse discrimination.”Lynn Superintendent Catherine Latham did not return calls made seeking comment on the story.O’Malley learned about the policy when she wanted to get her soon-to-be sixth-grade daughter transferred out of Marshall Middle School, which is the closest middle school to her home.She said Marshall students perform poorly on standardized tests and she doesn’t the school has a safe environment for her daughter.”I am petrified of what will happen is she goes to Marshall,” O’Malley said.O’Malley believes that non-white students automatically can switch districts while white students need to file an appeal.She decided to start a petition drive after talking to another parent, Sue Walker, who had gone through a similar experience with her own daughter.”We talked about how frustrated we became,” O’Malley said. “We knew we had to do something.”Walker ultimately took her daughter out of the public schools and sent her to St. Mary’s, a Lynn Catholic school.”A lot of people can’t afford that,” Walker said. “People shouldn’t have to deal with this.”While O’Malley and Walker find the system to be unfair, some school committee members believe there is a place for it.”It is a really tough thing for most people to understand. It is a strict law,” Lynn School Committee member Vinnie Spirito said. “It may seem like reverse racism, but it is a strict law. The law is the law and we have to live up to it. It has been around for 25 years I believe.”School committee member Donna Coppola agrees with the current policy.”I think the policy in Lynn is a good one. It allows every single child to go to their neighborhood school,” Coppola said. “If a child doesn’t want to go to their neighborhood school, it can it make it more unbalanced.”Coppola is suspicious when people want to change schools.”I am always concerned when a parent doesn’t want to go to a school. Do they just want to go to a white school or is it something else?,” Coppola said.School committee member Maria Carrasco believes the issue isn’t about race but about the