With half of the incumbent School Committee members opting to not run for re-election, this year offers Lynn voters the opportunity to elect at least three new committee members. Tiffany Magnolia, an English professor at North Shore Community, is one candidate running in the municipal election. Magnolia received a PhD in English from Tufts University in 2005 and, in addition to teaching at NSCC, has also taught at Wheaton College and the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
Thanks for chatting with me, Tiffany! You previously ran for the Lynn School Committee in 2019; why did you make the decision to run again this year?
The reason I ran in 2019 is that I didn’t see anyone on the SC who had both my level of expertise with education and my experience of being a parent to an LPS student. The perspective of a parent is one vantage point, but so isn’t a deep knowledge of educational policy, advocacy, and even theory. Because the SC in its entirety was re-elected in 2019, I decided to run again, because I think that perspective is still missing. Added to the fact that the only member of the SC with kids in the Lynn public schools was not running for SC in order to run for mayor, and it seemed especially important that the parent voice be present. I also want someone who shows up to the SC meetings with a deep knowledge of the possibilities in public education, and so I wanted to be that someone. There is a saying that workers in factories who were unionizing were doing so because they wanted bread, yes, but they wanted roses, too. The students of Lynn deserve roses as well as bread, and I think I have the perspective to ensure that both of those are delivered.
For those who don’t know, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.
I put myself through college, working selling furniture, and when I graduated in 1997, I did so with a “practical degree” in secondary education and English. I thought I was going to be a high school English teacher. As an undergraduate, I was very involved in an organization called the Coalition for Essential Schools, an organization dedicated to the re-imagining of the possibilities of what public education could be. I travelled to New Mexico and Harlem to see Coalition schools in action (they were all public schools), and dreamed of teaching in one. However, I didn’t get any of the jobs I interviewed for that first year out of college, and I decided instead to try my hand at teaching at the college level. While a graduate student at Tufts, I taught as an adjunct professor all over the Boston metropolitan area. I saw elite students at institutions like Wheaton college and Tufts, and students struggling to get into UMass Boston with a provisional admittance based on remedial English work, and everything in between. I really found my groove teaching at the college level, however, I never forgot my earlier training in education and educational policy. When I started at North Shore Community College in 2004, I found a way to meld my teaching in higher education with my earlier work in the K-12 world through union work, organizing, and professional development. I held many volunteer and paid positions in the Massachusetts Teachers Association over the years that I have been a member, including connecting locals within Essex county to legislators to work on education issues relevant to their locals. I took a pause from those activities when my daughter was born, 9 years ago, as juggling motherhood and a full time job is difficult enough. However, the issues that have crept up as she began attending LPS have brought me back to those confluences in my life with an eye toward a different outlet than union activity.
How do you think your experience in higher education as a professor informs the perspective that you would bring to the Lynn School Committee if elected this fall?
When I advise my students (most of whom are transferring), I talk to them about planning backwards. What I mean is that I ask them to think about where they want to be in 5 or 10 years, and then we outline the steps that it would take to get to that destination. In many ways, the perspective of seeing LPS graduates is a version of this “planning backwards.” If the goal of the LPS system is graduates alone, then there is no focus on what the schools should prepare students for after graduation. If the focus is on a 55% postsecondary education and a 45% career transition, then we can plan backwards to see how the schools are preparing students for this transition. Yes, kids at tech are prepared to go into their chosen field, but what happens to kids who change their minds? I recently had a Tech graduate who went through the entire carpentry program, because even though she figured out in sophomore year that she really wanted to do healthcare, it was too late for a change. So, she headed over to NSCC to get a Radiology degree. Now, if that student was adequately prepared for post-secondary education, then that is a fine transition. However, if she has only been prepared for transition into a career, then her options are gone, and she can only ever be a carpenter or a failure. That is not ok with me. This is why looking at the graduates and their experiences gives a particular perspective on what LPS does well and where there is room for some innovation and shifting focus.
Obviously a big topic of discussion this year for school districts nationwide is the reopening of school buildings during the ongoing pandemic. How would you assess LPS’s approach and what do you think next steps are in terms of mitigating harm but also in supporting students?
Last spring when the students returned to school, LPS had a grant to cover batch testing of all students. These tests became so routine that, like masks, they were just part of school. Even though parents signed consent forms for the testing, at least in my daughter’s elementary school, testing hasn’t happened yet. Given the fact that there have been 2 cases in the school in two weeks, it seems prudent that LPS do the batch testing again, at least in the elementary schools. In the middle and high schools, it seems essential that the focus has to be on getting the kids vaccinated. I know that there are a lot of anti-vaccine parents, but as an educational system, the focus should be on educating families about the importance of the vaccine to both the individual and the community. I think that when there is a mandate without education, the school misses the opportunity to teach a public health lesson. Mask mandates are essential in the school, and should likely stay throughout the 2021-2022 school year until case numbers drop significantly. This small step leads not only to lower transmission of coronavirus but also to lower numbers of other viruses, especially the flu.
The second part of supporting students has to be in the mental health arena. Many parents I talk to just don’t feel like they have the skills to help their kids process what this last year and a half has been like. The isolation that a lot of kids are experiencing is going to lead to problems down the road if we can’t find a productive way of dealing with it. Assuming that parents are up for that task is not a safe assumption. I would like to see drop in hours for students to talk with licensed mental health professionals just to check in and see how students are doing as well as group type activities to process and connect after a long time of isolation.
Demographics in LPS have changed significantly over the last few decades. Even in the last 10 years, the district has gone from 75.5% non-white to 86.9% and is currently 65% ‘economically disadvantaged,’ What, if any changes, do you think LPS needs to make in order to provide the best academic environment for all students, but particularly low income students and students of color?
Schools can’t be everything to a family or a community that has next to nothing, but they can be a lot of things. What I mean is that already schools feed students, give them free books, technology, and wireless internet access. We can, however, do even more, given some creativity and some money. Lynn is surprisingly absent of community spaces that are free of charge. I am co-leader of a girl scout troop here in Lynn, and finding a free meeting space is one of my hardest jobs. Imagine that schools were able to be open one evening a week for enrichment for seniors, for girl scouts, for anything else that the community needs and wants. This is the vision of a community school (Ford did this for many years), where the surrounding community compiled the needs and the school provided the space and in some cases the resources (think expertise). If the issue in the surrounding community is language acquisition, then the school could be a place for English classes. If it is financial management, then one of the many non-profits could hold classes on taxes or basic accounting. There are many resources like this in Lynn, but they are disconnected with the schools. The model of the Lynn Community Health Center being present in the high schools is a good example of how these various community resources can work with the schools to meet many of the needs of the community better.
With regards to racial justice, LPS needs to be deliberate and targeted in its recruitment of teachers and staff. I would like to see an early college cohort that has mentorship attached to it, which has students identified as potential teachers for LPS. Students of color and students for whom English is not the only language would benefit from the mentorship of someone who looks like them, encouraging them on the path of teaching. If LPS is looking to just recruit teachers who represent the diversity of the schools without actively encouraging the teaching profession to the students in those schools, they are missing an opportunity.
At times, there is a lot of emphasis placed on metrics like standardized test scores and graduation rates. When you hear the words ‘good school,’ how would you define that and what metrics are most important to you in making that assessment?
As an educator, you probably expect me to discuss something about a body of knowledge students should possess or a set of skills that they should emerge with. However, in seeing my own students over 20 years of teaching, I have come to value that the best schools help students to value learning. I see with my own daughter that it is less about whether she got an 80 or 70 on the test and more about if she got only 50% on the pre-test and 70% on the test, how exciting it is that she made progress. This shows an intrinsic value to learning that is so much more valuable in the world after school, because even if a person’s job becomes obsolete, the information they need to retrain or to switch gears is part of a process rather than a finite goal. I would love to see the emphasis on assessment methods in school that are geared towards progress and engagement, moving students from where they are to the next step without an emphasis on benchmarks that say every student should be here at age 10 or 15. These types of assessments do justice to folks with neurodiversity, language acquisition challenges, and learning differences, while not stigmatizing them. In fact even the most advanced students can benefit from such assessment priorities. These types of assessments serve students well throughout their lives, and emphasize lifelong learning.
Finally to end on a light note - what are you reading/listening to/watching these days?
Because I am an English teacher who specializes in literature of the African diaspora, folks often think I read big heavy books all the time! Well, I have and I sometimes do, but honestly, since the pandemic started, all I have been reading is romance novels. I especially like LGBTQIA romances, but I also love historical fiction that has strong women defying traditions. Basically, I want to see decent people win in the end.
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