LYNN — In a civil debate in which seven candidates followed the rules and showed the utmost respect for one another, the Lynn Teachers Union sponsored a forum introducing the School Committee hopefuls Wednesday evening in the Breed Middle School auditorium.
Challenger Tiffany Magnolia, a professor at North Shore Community College joined incumbents Donna Coppola, Jared NIcholson, Brian Castellanos, Michael Satterwite, John Ford and Lorraine Gately. A second challenger, Sandra Lopez, did not respond to requests to participate and did not appear, according to Brent Duncan, a representative of the union.
Six members will be elected to the board on Nov. 5.
The candidates were asked five questions, with all seven getting a two-minute opportunity to answer each. Questions ranged from how state money is allocated throughout the system to ways the members and challenge thought they could help teachers get more respect. Although most of the passion coming out of the debate was focused on the need for new school buildings, there was one exchange by Ford and Magnolia on how school budget money was allocated.
“An unbelievable amount of money goes to the upkeep of the buildings,” said Ford. “It costs almost that much money to keep the lights on, the heat on and the building safe.”
“I’ve got to say,” said Magnolia, “that if it costs that much to keep the lights on in the schools, that’s one heck of an electric bill.”
Gately also said that the city is slowly recovering from the fiscal education crisis of a few years ago.
“We are finally emerging from shaky ground to somewhat more level ground,” she said.
Castellanos got emotional when it was time to give his final statement, which came after the group discussed respect for teachers.
“I always thought I was a broken kid,” he said. “I worked two jobs, slept in my car, and fell asleep in class.
“My educators were the ones who gave me hope. I will do anything I can to give back to today’s kids.”
By and large, though, the meat of the forum came when discussing new school buildings. Ford noted that at least two school buildings were more than 100 years old, and three others were in their 90s.
“We need them now,” he said. “The problem is that if you go into the (Massachusetts School Building Association) protocol, it takes four years. And we can’t wait four years to solve the overcrowding problems.”
He suggested that portable classrooms were one of several solutions to examine.
Coppola spoke for the majority of the candidates when she said that the committee, and the city at large, needed to do a better job in stating its case for two new middle schools. A proposal to build middle schools in Ward 1 to replace Pickering and next to Lynn Tech to help alleviate overcrowding at Breed was defeated.
“Every member of this board worked hard on this,” she said. “We’ll need to do better at making people understand the need. But the numbers here at Breed are bursting at the seams.”
Magnolia said that next time the city goes through the MSBA process, it should come up with a coherent and systematic communications system to illustrate the need for new schools.
Said Nicholson: “Schools themselves are representative of what the city thinks of its education system.
“We need to learn from what happened the last time so it’s not repeated.”
“Our students deserve new schools,” said Satterwhite. “And we have to let voters know our city’s needs with regards to new schools.”
Gately, a former middle school science teachers, said the first thing she did after retiring was run for School Committee, and once she got elected, she spent a lot of time listening.
“And here we are,” she said. “We don’t have a new Pickering. We don’t have another middle school. We deserve these schools.”
On the subject of teachers, Satterwhite said they felt overworked and underappreciated.
“Teachers need a voice, and they need to be heard,” he said.
Coppola said that she has four children and five grandchildren, along with 19 foster children, all of them educated in public schools.
“And,” she said, “I’ve never heard a bad thing about a teacher.”
And as to the nature of what they do as committee members, Nicholson said, “I believe public education is among the most important things we do. We are advocates for funding, and we communicate with the community and get feedback from it.”
