Having served the Swampscott community for over 34 years as principal at all three district elementary schools, and Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the school district, I have a thorough understanding of how our town and school system works.
I attended the Hadley and Clarke Schools as a child, and remain invested today with a grandchild at Hadley. In my experience, I believe that one of the most important elements of a strong school system is ensuring that it is led by an experienced, close-knit school board, which has successfully accomplished great things.
It is with this fact in mind that I strongly recommend the citizens of Swampscott re-elect Carin Marshall and Amy O’Connor to the School Committee on April 30th.
My career in Swampscott straddled significant changes, including the closing of Machon elementary, the redistricting of students to Clarke and Hadley, the building of the new high school, the ongoing effort to manage our aging facilities, several Superintendent transitions, and numerous shifts in school committee membership.
Throughout all these challenges, Swampscott always remained a robust and vibrant school community. It is in the last six years that the system’s leadership has truly coalesced and made the district into an impeccable system that garners national recognition and single-handedly draws people to our town.
It is the nature of public schools that they are governed by an elected School Committees, and are regularly subjected to changing leadership. Those of us in public education understand this reality, and learn to adapt to ever changing personalities, priorities, and goals. It is not uncommon to have important projects and initiatives interrupted or lost altogether with each election cycle. Even well meaning changes cause valuable time and energy to be lost. I have seen this happen several times in my career.
The presence of a stable, high functioning school committee in place for multiple years is extremely rare, and amazingly advantageous to a district. The fact that Swampscott has such a committee in place today is in large part due to the commitment of Carin Marshall and Amy O’Connor, who like the other current board members, have proven their willingness to sacrifice their time and energy to make the Swampscott school system the best it can be.
The town’s extraordinary opportunity to maintain this successful formula for another three years is too valuable to overlook. Successful members who are willing to continue to serve are hard to come by on any public committee. Swampscott should not miss the chance to keep these two experienced and dedicated professionals working on our side.
Please join me in voting for Carin Marshall and Amy O’Connor for school committee on April 30.
Lois Longin