A Platform For
All of Lynn's Kids
Improving Student Achievement
- Following the passage of Question 2 in 2024, in which voters removed passing the MCAS as a graduation requirement for public school districts, the local districts now must set standards for how students demonstrate competency to earn their right to graduate. How the district determines competency and how our locally adopted regulations comply with state regulations, which are currently being discussed, will be at the forefront of the upcoming school committee term.
- The district is working on tailored academic paths for 21st-century success, but these should be open to including 21st century skills such as Media Literacy and Financial Literacy, two particular courses that Tristan would like to see added.
-Lynn itself is a city with a rich history, from its settling in 1629 to becoming the shoe production capital of the world in the 20th century to today. It has always been a gateway city and a city of working class people and immigrants through its history to today. We should take some time in our history curriculum to teach this local history to our Lynn Public School students.
-Additionally, local history is very much so intertwined with oft forgotten minority history, which very much so has local roots as well. For example, we should teach about Frederick Douglass’ time in Lynn, the fact that Malcolm X spent many of his formative years in nearby Roxbury, and the lives of the indigenous Naumkeag people who were on this land prior to Lynn’s settling. This creates a modern, forward thinking curriculum that honors the past and empowers our future.
- We should not be afraid of more experiential or hands-on learning opportunities, including in trades, healthcare, science, law, or many other industries that we can access in Lynn, the North Shore, and Greater Boston.
- Early college represents an opportunity to build bridges and open opportunities to countless students and should be prioritized and expanded.
Prioritizing Increasing Opportunity Beyond the Classroom
- Extracurricular activities open doors and offer lessons and experiences that cannot be replicated in the classroom. Funding and empowering these clubs and teams is essential to providing a full education for every student.
- We must work to ensure all schools, including those schools which are newly formed such as Frederick Douglass Collegiate Academy and the City Arts and Sciences Academy, have full access to sports, clubs, and identity as a school community.
- Tristan will work to spearhead a “Job, Internship, Career” program linking students to local businesses, utilizing Lynn’s diverse economy to create career paths for students with and without college plans.
- Field trips should be encouraged to promote outside the classroom experiences and learning.
Supporting and Retaining Teachers
- We are fortunate to have the best and brightest educating our students at LPS; now we need to keep them here. We must ensure our salaries are not only competitive but indeed world-class, reflecting the teacher population we have attracted.
- MTEL vouchers and prep courses should be continued to be offered to invest fully in the teachers we have.
- Tristan supports heavily looking into a “Grow Your Own” pipeline from Lynn Public School graduates to teaching jobs in Lynn, creating a force of teachers that reflects our own student population.
- All of this must be done with union collaboration to ensure the teachers themselves are being heard on how they can best be supported.
Creating More Safe, Inclusive, and Modern Schools
- We must address overcrowding in schools and classrooms. Creative opportunities to open new schools, such as Frederick Douglass Collegiate Academy and the City Arts and Sciences Academy, represent two such solutions. Furthermore, the new Pickering Middle School build is an opportunity to have a cutting edge building that can fit the growing district.
-There is no doubt for the need to advocate for new schools and reforms to existing ones, whether they be creative solutions like those discussed above or building new schools. Green, energy-efficient schools are a way to unlock grant funding and long-term savings, as well las turn an eye toward the future of sustainability.
- Accessible infrastructure, both in the way students are taught and the way schools are physically located and built, is essential to ensuring every student has educational opportunities.
- We must ensure safety and ADA compliance at the Virginia Barton Center (formerly Briarcliff Lodge), which will be housing the TEAMS program starting this fall. Being located so close to a major highway and a body of water, it is imperative not to skip any steps in the planning and upgrading of this property.
-While the City Arts and Sciences Academy (CASA) is an exciting initiative that opens many doors, its implementation and the speed with which it has been adapted has left many stakeholders, including faculty and parents, feeling like they are not being communicated with. We must ensure that CASA opens in a realistic and budget conscious way or we risk creating major problems for the district down the road.
- We will work to improve school meal quality. We will expand Halal and Kosher offerings and support cafeteria staff with proper training to ensure these meals are prepared appropriately.
Strengthening Community Connections
- There is work to be done to improve transparency and communication between School Committee and families. This can be done through digital and website visibility and giving school committee members a consistentlynnma.gov email address like those of the City Councilors.
- To promote city/school collaboration, we should look into establishing school committee liaisons to city boards such as the Board of Health, the Human Rights Commission, and the Youth and Adolelscence Taskforce. This can be a first step toward creating a much needed school-to-city collaboration that matches Lynn’s shared goals and budget priorities.
- We can continue to work to foster neighborhood school culture and partnerships with local organizations to make “Neighborhood Schools” that bring together our city’s families and the broader community.
Changes Beyond the Municipal Level
- The truth is that to address root causes of education inequity, we must look beyond to the systemic factors which plague the system. These factors are determined far above the level of municipal school committees, but Tristan is not afraid to be an outspoken voice to address these changes.
- We must address Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) limitations. Currently, absent certain situations, a district is generally only able to undertake one school building project at a time. While this works for smaller districts that only have one school building at each level, for larger districts such as Lynn, this often causes slowdown and delays, while the infrastructure crumbles in schools. Thus, it is important that the MSBA permit larger, urban districts in certain circumstances to take on more than one school building project at a time, while maintaining fiscal responsibility.
- Funding models must be changed and Tristan will aggressively oppose charter school expansion. The city recently almost lost out on potentially $24 million dollars in funding due to a proposal by KIPP Academy for more student seats. This proposal was narrowly defeated following much community outcry. Charter schools are full of great students and educators who do good things. However, public funds must go to public schools, and charter schools currently operate in such an independent manner that calling them public schools is truly a misnomer.
- A school in the bottom 10 percent of MCAS scores should not lose funding; indeed, a school struggling with MCAS scores should be given more funding by the state for additional support, programs, and personnel, such as more teachers to make smaller class sizes. MCAS scores being tied to funding has a disproportionately negative impact on school districts such as Lynn, where 40 percent of the district’s students is not fluent in English. This type of change must be done at the state level, and Tristan is willing to partner with our local delegation to make it so.
- There exists a wide network of school committees across the Commonwealth facing similar issues. Lynn should be a major voice in groups such as the Massachusetts Association of School Committees to help bring the issues facing urban school districts across the Commonwealth to the forefront. As school committee members on the ground in these districts, it is imperative to join our voices and ensure that we are heard at the higher levels to be able to affect structural change that can positively impact our district far into the future.