Anyone in attendance or watching the Lynn School Committee Thursday heard a sitting city councilor – Ward 1’s Dr. Peter Meaney – during the open mic portion of the meeting accuse the school administration of being “incompetent.”
The topic was the need to move one program with 36 students from Fecteau-Leary Junior/Senior High School to the former Eastern Bank building at 195 Market St. that the City purchased this year. The entire Fecteau-Leary program will be relocated to Market Street in September 2026, but a new STEAM academy opening in the Fecteau-Leary building on North Common Street next fall necessitates one group moving a year early.
Purportedly speaking on behalf of “several constituents,” Meaney, a dentist by trade, drilled down into one aspect of the move – an alleged lack of communication by school administration. Interestingly, he said “I don’t think the details of what’s been miscommunicated are important right now.”
In other words, let’s not get bogged down with facts.
“The upper (school) administration is not doing a great job right now,” said a politician who has no oversight authority over the school district, let alone any individual administrators. “No plan has been relayed to parents or to myself as a councilor. We’re not looking to butt in … (but) if you keep us in the dark, it makes you look incompetent.”
On the agenda for Thursday’s meeting – published on Monday – were the naming of the STEAM Academy – now known as City Academy of Sciences and Arts per a vote of the school committee – and a concurrent initiative, the relocation of Frederick Douglass Collegiate Academy from North Shore Community College to the former Eastern Bank building. That program, in which students can earn as many as 12 college credits while still in high school, will have the capacity to double in enrollment within three years.
The STEAM academy will open with 200 students and exponentially increase in size as grades are added on the way to becoming a 6-12 school. That will provide critical space relief to middle and high schools currently bursting at the seams.
That doesn’t sound like the work of an “incompetent” administration.
Dr. Shannon Gardner, executive director of Innovation and Grants Management, provided a detailed presentation and, along with Superintendent of Schools Dr. Evonne S. Alvarez and Deputy Superintendent Maricel Goris, answered all of the committee’s questions. They actually communicated quite well.
After Meaney’s lecture at the beginning of the meeting, Mayor Jared Nicholson, the School Committee chair, took the unusual step of commenting on something said during the open mic session. The mayor, looking and sounding as close to agitated as he gets, was concise, yet firm. Meaney clearly touched a nerve.
“I think a ward councilor has every right to be heard and you’re always welcome here,” he said to Meaney. “The allegation of incompetence is extremely unprofessional.”
Not to mention completely unwarranted.
Here’s an idea: Let’s have elected officials do the job they were elected to do. Beyond that, Dr. Meaney, stick to the fillings.
