LYNNFIELD — After Lynnfield Public Schools received backlash for racist incidents in the middle school, father Carl Allien returned to the School Committee, stating that he has yet to see any change regarding the issues.
Before beginning his public comment, Allien thanked the parents, teachers, students, and members of Lynnfield for Love for standing by the family.
“One year ago, I stood here with a plea: help me create a safe learning environment for my son free of racial bullying,” he said, stating that the administration had met with him and his wife Eva, promising help that never happened.
Allien said that a year later, they’re in the same place.
“After my son was subjected to at least three consecutive racial attacks, I questioned what was being done since we spoke last year… In accordance with the school’s civil rights grievance procedures, we were to receive notifications of the outcome of every investigation,” he said, claiming that he has yet to receive an incident report from 2025 or from the three recent events.
Allien stated that he has submitted two public records requests to Superintendent Tom Geary for incidents at the Huckleberry Hill Elementary and the Middle School, claiming that the response was a $13,000 invoice for the information.
“If you have a policy in place to obtain records with a fee schedule that you must adhere to, I would like to understand if the policy is consistent with residents’ requests for public records,” he said.
Allien noted that the way the racial situations are being handled is a “far cry from an urgent matter,” and that it continues to be tabled, and that no concrete actions have been taken.
Geary responded to some of Allien’s claims, stating that the documents he had put in a request for “yielded over 8,000 pages of information.”
He continued by saying that he had run the situation by their attorney and the state, and asked Allien to narrow his search.
Allien then asked for the incident reports and investigation reports, to which Geary responded that he did not have them with him at that time.
Chair Kristen Ellworthy said that Geary would follow up with Allien after the meeting.
“If I had received these things, I wouldn’t be asking for a public record request. I’ve never received anything. Do you know how many incidents we’ve been dealing with for almost 6 years?” Allien asked, stating that he didn’t even know he was supposed to receive incident reports.
Geary stated that they would have to talk offline and that he “disagreed” with a lot of what Allien said.
Before the meeting could close, Committee member Kim Baker Donahue stated that, after Allien spoke, she asked that the Committee have the chance to discuss it collectively.
“This is all very concerning. We obviously know this is not just a middle school issue. It’s district-wide. So, I would like to ask that we commit to having this on our next agenda,” she said.
Elworthy explained that the prior School Committee meeting had fully discussed a plan made by Geary to handle these concerns. Through Geary’s new plan, action items and items related to this discussion will be on subsequent agendas.
“I do think that Tom (Geary) outlined pretty specific accountability measures that were going to be integrated into future agendas, so I would expect to see those on the agendas,” Elworthy said.
Baker Donahue agreed but noted that it takes time and that she wants to see what they’re doing right now.
Elworthy asked for a specific agenda item Baker Donahue was looking for, and she said she’d like to go over the public records requests and leadership accountability.
It was agreed that Baker Donahue would send Elworthy bullet points on what she would want for the possible agenda item.
