LYNNFIELD — After students were stuck home for 18 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lynnfield METCO director Curtis Blyden said that the 2021-22 school year is off to a great start.
The program has been such a success that METCO, in its recent request for additional funding, is asking for the addition of 10 students to Lynnfield program.
“In the past we have had as many as 45 or 46 METCO students so the thought is that as long as we have the space, maybe we can get to the level where we’ve been in the past,” School Committee Chair Rich Sjoberg said Wednesday. “Until now, we have only accepted kindergarten students, but there are many more METCO families who may be looking to other desirable towns for other grade levels.”
METCO is also looking to expand its program to East Boston. Blyden said that due to its proximity to Lynnfield (only a 25-minute bus ride), METCO has been identified as a great potential host community for students in East Boston.
The METCO program is asking Lynnfield to make some adjustments; Blyden is asking the School Committee to vote on the number of students to be placed in the town in January instead of April. This allows for earlier decisions to be made by METCO, which in turn will allow for students to have more time to adjust to the district.
Lynnfield has been involved in the program since 1968, two years after the METCO program was founded. Through the program, Boston-area students have the opportunity to attend school in several suburban communities, including Lynnfield. Currently, the town has 35 students enrolled in the program who come to the town’s public schools from Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, Roslindale, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, and the South End.
Blyden reported that 50 percent of middle-school METCO students are involved in after-school activities in Lynnfield and that the program has received positive feedback from parents and caregivers from both Boston and the town. This year was also the first year that a late bus operated in Lynnfield and Blyden added that it has allowed METCO students to pursue learning activities outside of the classroom.
When it comes to those who participate in sports through the program, Blyden noted that the organization is seeing a shift in where students choose to play.
“The real shift has been a lot of middle-school students in the middle school are staying in the district to play sports, and a lot of that is (due to) enhanced relationships between our parents,” said Blyden.
School Committee member Jamie Hayman also touched on the important aspect of relationship building.
“I think this year in particular, and last year as well, that relationship building is so fundamental to all our students being successful in school ― and relationships are where it all starts,” he said.
Through Lynnfield’s collaboration with METCO, three students are a part of A Healthy Lynnfield, the town’s substance-use prevention coalition, and one student was selected to participate in the Boston Mayor’s Youth Council.
For Sjoberg, much of the credit for the positive impact the program is having in Lynnfield belongs to Blyden.
“Kudos to Curtis for the job he has done. He is such a valuable asset beyond his interaction with just the METCO kids, it’s all kids,” he said. “He is an incredible asset to all of our students and everyone in the school community and has done a tremendous job.”
