Lynn parents can tour new early childhood center

LYNN – School administrators are giving kindergarten parents from three overcrowded public schools a chance to tour the new Commercial Street early childhood center on Friday, Sept.6.School Superintendent Catherine Latham and Center Principal Marilyn Mahoney said parents and children will receive letters this week inviting them to go to Tracy, Brickett and Ford schools at 8:30 a.m. on the 6th and board buses for rides to the 90 Commercial St. center.”They’ll get to meet their teacher and paraprofessional. We have a dream team for a staff. Once parents see the facility, they will be ecstatic,” Mahoney said.Latham last Friday said an initial estimate of 241 children attending the center jumped to 260. Ten classrooms on the Lynn Vocational Technical Institute annex’ second floor are being converted into 10 classrooms and other space for the kindergartners.School Committee members on April 23 voted unanimously on Latham’s recommendation to ease overcrowding in Tracy, Brickett and Ford by converting the annex’ upper floor into the childhood center.The move necessitated converting the former Ford annex on Bennett Street into school administration offices.Workers labored in the Commercial and Bennett Street buildings and furniture and boxes sat in hallways in both buildings Friday even as Latham and other school employees went about the business and preparing to educate nearly 15,000 local children.”It’s slow but we’re getting there,” Latham said.Latham said increasing enrollment numbers remain a concern for administrators with the first day of school scheduled for Sept. 4. Kindergartners start school on Sept. 9.About 30 teachers and other employees will work with Mahoney, the Lynn school’s former early childhood coordinator, in the childhood center.Plans for the center call for parents to drop off their children at the three schools on weekday mornings for transportation by bus to the annex. The kindergartners will return by bus to the schools at the end of the school day.Mahoney on Friday credited Latham with creating the center and ensuring full-day kindergarten remains an option for local parents. A 43-year veteran of local schools, Mahoney said she is “thrilled to be back working directly with kids.”