To the editor:
I came home to Lynnfield last week after finishing my junior year at the University of Southern California, ready to spend time with my family, my friends, and my dog. What I was not ready for — though I should have been — was learning that the racism I grew up with in Lynnfield Public Schools is still thriving.
Let me be clear: this is not new. My siblings and I, along with so many of our friends of color, endured years of what some might call “microaggressions.” I would call them what they were: macro aggressions. Slurs whispered to us in hallways. Comments that reminded us that we did not belong. I was plainly Asian American during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, navigating anti-Asian sentiment in a school system that offered us little acknowledgment.
So, when I read about a 12-year-old Black student being called a monkey, told to “go back to Africa,” told he is a slave, and subjected to so many horrible gesticulations — not once, but repeatedly, over the course of years — my heart broke. Not because I was surprised, but because I was not.
And when I read that his father, Carl Allien, was handed a nearly $13,000 invoice simply for requesting investigation reports that the district was already obligated to provide. That is not bureaucracy. That is obstruction.
Superintendent Tom Geary responded to this father’s pleas with “I disagree with a lot of what you’re saying.” School Committee Chair Kristen Elworthy tried to adjourn the meeting rather than address the issue. That is not leadership. It is blatant complicity through inaction.
Here is the uncomfortable truth that Lynnfield needs to face: Our town is changing, whether its leadership likes it or not. Every year, more families of color move in. More children who do not look like the majority walk through the doors of our schools. And yet the people making decisions — the superintendent, the school committee, the administrators — do not reflect that reality. How can we expect a district to protect children of color when the people in charge have never had to think about what it means to be one?
We do not just need better anti-bullying policies or another outside consultant. We need diversity in who is leading our schools. We need administrators and committee members who understand racism. Who have lived through it. Who will not just treat it as a sanitized, abstract policy problem to check off. A superintendent whose entire career in this district has been in finance and operations — not teaching, not curriculum, not student-facing services — whose contract was rushed through without public input, is not equipped to handle a civil rights crisis. That is what this is.
I remember when Lynnfield lost its collective mind in 2020 over the 1619 Project. The opposition was deafening. And yet last summer, district staff were caught on a live microphone using the N-word while setting up for the LHS graduation, two quietly resigned while the town called its own review “complete.” That contrast tells you everything about our town’s priorities.
Lynnfield voted for Trump in 2016. It flipped to Biden in 2020 by the narrowest of margins. We sit in one of the bluest states in the country, but our town has long leaned conservative in ways that go beyond the ballot box — in who we hire, whose complaints we take seriously and whose children we choose to protect.
I love Lynnfield. I have lived here since I was 4 years old. I have made some of my closest friendships here. But I should not have to be ashamed to say where I am from, and neither should any student of color sitting in those classrooms right now. The fact that I went through this five years ago and a 12-year-old is going through it today is a damning indictment of a district that treats racism like an inconvenience rather than a wake-up call.
To the parents of Lynnfield: Talk to your children. To the School Committee: Do your job; you signed up for this. To Superintendent Geary and Chair Elworthy: If you cannot lead a diverse community, step aside for someone who can.
It is 2026. Act like it.
Julia Ho
Lynnfield High School Class of 2023
Lynnfield Middle School Class of 2019
Huckleberry Hill Elementary School Class of 2015
