LYNN — Dr. Evonne Alvarez will become Lynn’s next Superintendent of Schools in July. In an interview with The Item, Alvarez discussed her background as an education leader, her goals for the Lynn school district and her motivation to expand opportunities for all Lynn students.
Only four months after former Superintendent of Schools Dr. Patrick Tutwiler’s resignation in August, the School Committee voted unanimously last Thursday to elect Alvarez superintendent.
Alvarez is the daughter of Cuban and Ecuadorian immigrants. She grew up in Florida, where she started her 27-year career in education as a social studies teacher in Miami-Dade County. She said that her parents, who did not have the opportunity to go to college, instilled the importance of education in her.
“Things that you are kind of reinforced, right, in your upbringing in terms of education, but placing that importance on education, because they both didn’t have the opportunity to go to school,” Alvarez said.
From 1995 until 2022, Alvarez climbed the ladder — from assistant principal of curriculum to principal — to eventually become the administrative director of the Miami-Dade school district.
Alvarez said that Lynn’s non-English speaking population resembles that of the student base in Miami-Dade. As a bilingual education leader, she feels comfortable guiding immigrant students through the struggles that come with learning in a new culture and language.
“There’s so many students in Miami Dade as well as in Lynn that are non-English speakers, and so that comes with a set of challenges that having worked with students. Not being a native English language speaker myself, I’m familiar with some of the social-emotional moving parts,” Alvarez said. “That’s what really struck a chord. The diversity of the city is very similar to the diversity that I have worked with for a number of years.”
As Lynn schools recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Alvarez said that she plans to collaborate with parents to address students’ social, emotional, and educational needs.
“As educators, we tend to assume that everybody knows what they need to do for us to support students, in terms of community partnerships, and that isn’t always the case. I want to be really explicit in finding out what those needs are,” Alvarez said. “Those [needs] existed before COVID. And they’ve been exacerbated by what happened with students that had to stay home for a year, year and a half, two years, in some cases. For me, it’s definitely a priority to develop additional partnerships in which parents are also rewarded.”
As the mother of two young adults, aged 21 and 24, Alvarez said that she understands parents’ concerns with their children’s education and wellbeing.
“It is very hard to be especially a parent that is working many hours a day, and trying to make sure that your children are always safe and on the right track and the path to success. There are so many parents who rely on teachers as advocates, and as a superintendent, that’s my ultimate responsibility,” Alvarez said.
In her public interview, Alvarez presented photographs of her classroom and curriculum design projects in Miami-Dade. As the redesign and innovation officer, Alvarez transformed underutilized classroom spaces into everything from biology labs to stock market simulation areas. As superintendent, she said that she wants to build opportunities for students to learn the 21st century skills needed for success after graduation.
“What we need to look at is: What are students going to need to know, right, five, 10, 15 years from now, as they graduate? We’re looking at students in the K-12 curriculum. What do they need to have access to in terms of curriculum? Resources? What should those buildings look like? What should those classrooms look like?” Alvarez said. “The goal is that colleges and university will say, ‘We want students from Lynn, and we’re gonna give them scholarships to come to our institutions.’”
Alvarez currently lives in Revere, but plans to move to Lynn. She said that she was certain the job was right for her when she toured Callahan Elementary School and a little boy told her to behave in Spanish. She said that as superintendent, she would go back to Callahan and visit that boy again.
“Then, you know, when we went to leave. And the committee member Lennin Pena was me, he was standing right behind me. He [the boy] said, ‘Pórtate bien.’ I turned around and I looked at Mr. Pena, and he started laughing, and I started laughing too. ‘Did he just tell me to behave?’ It really was a great moment, you know, he really made my morning,” Alvarez said.
Alvarez, who will soon be Lynn’s first Hispanic woman superintendent, said that she wants Lynn students to know that their education can bring them closer to their dreams in life.
“I really want students to know that it is possible that you can do anything you want to do. And you can go to college, and you can make those dreams come true, because this is my dream. And again, it wouldn’t be possible had I not gotten the education that I got,” she said.
