LYNN — The School Committee voted unanimously Thursday night to create a new position for the Lynn Public Schools: a communications specialist.
The communications specialist will be responsible for setting and guiding the strategy for all Lynn Public Schools (LPS) communications, website and social-media functions and helping communicate the district’s goals to the community.
This would be a non-union role and will report directly to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Patrick Tutwiler.
Tutwiler and his team were responsible for coming up with the idea to create a communications specialist position for the district. He told the School Committee that there had been advances in communications in the district, but it had only engaged at the surface level of social media. Having a communications specialist would help the district have broader outreach and engagement with the community, he said.
“While these improvements reflect our commitment to two-way communications and partnership with families, we are not quite where we need to be,” said Tutwiler. “Frequency in the substance of district communication needs improvement and the LPS website could be a more robust, accessible resource for families and the broader community.”
Today, there is no one person whose job it is to act as a communications specialist, he said.
Tutwiler said the position will be posted publicly within the next two weeks and will remain open for 30 days. The salary range for the position would be $65,000-$80,000.
Before the full School Committee vote, the Personnel subcommittee held a session on the proposed position.
The subcommittee is led by School Committee Vice Chair Donna Coppola, and Tiffany Magnolia and Lorraine Gately serve as members. The three had questions about the logistics of the job and if there had been any other districts with similar positions.
Tutwiler gave an example of another school district that had similar positions — Salem — and said the person would be working alongside the superintendent and his staff, rather than working on their own.
“A big deal of what is in this posting reflects what happens in Salem,” he explained.
Gately raised the question of whether school clerks could bid or apply for this position.
“I don’t even have anyone in mind,” said Gately. “I’m just saying that people get discouraged when they have worked for years in Lynn and there’s a job that opens up and they can fit the bill, but they don’t get it.”
Tutwiler said they were able to apply but they couldn’t bid on the position due to it being a non-union position. He did, however, agree with Gately’s comments that experience would play a factor in the application process.
“I would go the cup-half-full approach,” said Tutwiler. “If their experience and qualifications match the need, they have just as good a chance as anybody else.”
The subcommittee voted unanimously (3-0) to approve the position and sent it to the full committee, where it passed by a 7-0 vote.
