LYNN — The School Committee voted unanimously Thursday night to allow Superintendent of Schools Dr. Patrick Tutwiler to proceed with a three-year plan aimed at directing state funds toward the district’s lowest-performing students.
The vote allows Tutwiler to start to implement the second year of the Student Opportunity Act (SOA) Plan, which includes goals for how to spend an influx in state funds that low-income districts like Lynn are receiving from the SOA legislation, which was signed into law by Gov. Charlie Baker in 2019.
Tutwiler told the committee that the funds will go toward services that benefit its lowest-performing subgroups, English-language learners (ELLs) and special-education students.
When the district learned it would have $12.84 million in state aid to spend through the Student Opportunity Act last year, Tutwiler decided to seek input on how the public would like to see the additional funds allocated to the Lynn Public Schools (LPS).
Much of that input — which was reinforced with the results of an additional survey that was sent out at the beginning of March — played into Tutwiler’s recommendation for how this year’s funds, which have not yet been determined, should be spent.
“It is my recommendation that the existing priorities identified through the initial stakeholder input effort for the SOA remain in place,” said Tutwiler. “We intend to honor the additional areas of emphasis in this survey.”
Goals outlined in the district’s SOA plan include responding to the emotional needs of students, improving special-education supports, improving services for multilingual learners by expanding social and emotional supports at the secondary level, and creating additional enrichment opportunities for students while creating planning time for elementary-school teachers.
The Student Opportunity Act gives low-income Massachusetts school districts, with a large number of English-language learners and special-education students, $1.5 billion in funds over seven years. To receive these funds, school districts were tasked with drafting a three-year plan for how they would be allocated.
The district’s SOA plan for 2021-23, which was approved by the School Committee in January 2021, included the areas that its first year of funding would be used for. Funds were used to hire 35 new social workers and services aimed at improving student achievement.
Tutwiler said 1,307 stakeholders participated in the district’s survey last month, with the public weighing in on how the second year of SOA funds should be spent. In addition to reinforcing the district’s goals for how funds should be allocated, Tutwiler said survey respondents also highlighted three new areas of emphasis: the quality and variety of meals provided for students, more enrichment and arts activities during the school day and after school, and additional support and compensations for district staff.
Tutwiler said he and his team chose to stay the course with the SOA plan because of the strong support shown in the survey; LPS has already partially implemented the plan; and the plan’s goals align with the priorities of an SOA stakeholder process conducted in 2019 and the district’s strategic plan.
School districts are allowed to add amendments to their SOA plan. Any amended plans must be submitted to the state by April 1. Given Tutwiler’s recommendation to stay the course, the School Committee decided not to add amendments to the plan.
Despite the decision to stick with the original plan, Tutwiler recommended that the committee continue to solicit feedback from stakeholders annually.
“Staying on course with the original SOA plan does not mean ignoring input,” he said. “Not only will this help confirm or reject that the district is on a course that the community believes is the right one, but it is also an opportunity to understand potential additional areas of input.”
