Saugus school board: Information on high school incident scarce

SAUGUS – School Committee Chairman Wendy Reed emphasized that the chaotic “senior sleepover” last week was not a school-sanctioned event.”I think it’s important that the School Committee and the public understand what happened here,” said Reed during a special meeting to discuss the issue Thursday night. “This was not a school-sanctioned event and it was dealt with.”One student was arrested and another hit by a police car after a camp out at the high school turned violent. Several juniors crashed the event, and rocks, trash and eggs were thrown, damaging several vehicles.In an email to the committee, acting Principal Jason Merrill said it’s been common in the past for students to come to the school after hours during senior week to decorate, but noted “in recent years it’s turned into a tradition of seniors camping out on the front circle.””I will work with the Saugus Police Department to make sure a similar situation doesn’t happen in the future,” said Merrill in the email.School Committee member Frederick Doucette said the committee should table the discussion for another meeting since Merrill was at the senior prom Thursday night.School Committee member Arthur Grabowski said he was “disturbed” that the School Committee was not provided with any information about the incident.”I think it’s incumbent on the administration and the superintendent to let the School Committee know,” said Grabowski. “We shouldn’t be looking for this information ?This isn’t the first time.”Reed said information was scarce about the incident and noted school officials did not receive any reports from police.”(Merrill) did not receive a report from the police and was not aware the police were here ?” said Reed. “I feel bad for that because how do you react when you’re not aware? They did not receive anything from the police and did not know the extent of it until that time and didn’t unfold until Tuesday morning. As of today, there is still no police report to the high school of the incident.”Reed said she didn’t find out about the incident until a reporter for the Daily Item contacted her for a comment Friday night.”To tell you the truth, I was quite upset that the school committee was not informed that an incident had taken place,” said Reed.However, she also noted “there was barely anything to report” at first.”Facts came out between Twitter and Facebook to the media and they knew more than we did,” she said. “No one had any information about an incident other than what was reported in the Lynn Item.”Vice Chairman Corinne Riley called the sleepover “unfortunate,” but the senior class shouldn’t be remembered for last week’s incident.”Seniors will get into whatever trouble they get into,” said Riley. “If that doesn’t happen next year, something else is going to ? They’re going to find something else if it’s not a sleepover. They want to do things as a group ? This is a great class that is going to graduate tomorrow and move on.”Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected].