Lynn superintendent, Ford principal butt heads on overcrowding problem

LYNN – A power struggle over classroom space at the Ford School came to a head Tuesday, when Superintendent Catherine Latham vetoed a plan by building Principal Claire Crane and resolved an overcrowding issue herself.”There are four first grades at the Ford School with 34, 32, 32 and 21 students,” Latham said. “I want to try and even out the four first grades.””It’s a short-term fix for a long-term problem, and I’m going to fight it,” Crane said.Latham’s plan to alleviate overcrowding includes moving the computer lab out of its large space and moving in the smallest of first grade classes. Latham said that way when new students come into the district they aren’t being enrolled into an already overcrowded classroom.The empty classroom will become a new computer lab. Any computers that don’t fit into the space will be placed in the fifth-grade rooms.”It’s just a short-term fix, until the end of the year,” Latham agreed.Crane said Latham’s solution doesn’t work because it fails to address another overcrowding issue with her fifth grade.”We’re sitting in a fifth-grade classroom right here,” Crane said Tuesday while seated in the library. “This is where the floating fifth grade meets. They don’t have a classroom. They spend half a day here and half in the computer lab.”Without the computer lab, the fifth grade will have to make the library its permanent home, which will force Crane to close the library to the rest of the school.Crane’s solution was to move the library into the computer lab, making it a true media center, and dividing the library into a first grade and fifth grade classroom.Latham said she would consider Crane’s plan but not now.”Anything that would require moving walls or construction would have to wait until the end of the year,” she said.Crane called the space issue an old problem “because this school is chronically overcrowded. It all goes back to when they closed the annex.”When the School Department made the decision to close the Ford School Annex on Bennett Street, which housed fifth through eighth grade, Crane said she had to absorb the fifth grade into an already overcrowded school.Crane admitted that what truly annoyed her was the way Latham carried out the changes, which she felt was heavy-handed.She said the superintendent gave her virtually no warning. She swept in last week and announced the changes then men showed up Tuesday and began unhooking computers and stacking them in the basement, Crane said.”There was no notice, no discussion. I assumed we’d have a meeting so we could work it out but that didn’t happen,” she said.Latham said she would be happy to consult with Inspectional Services Director Michael Donovan regarding Crane’s plan but not until school ended in June.”It’s possible in the long run. I’m willing to look at anything,” she said.Chris Stevens can be reached at [email protected].