Lantigua
Calls for Receivership
Asks state to take over school system.
TOM DUGGAN,
Valley Patriot Editor
Lawrence mayor Willie Lantigua asked
the State Department of Education to take
over the Lawrence Public Schools today
after the Department of Education deemed
another three schools in Lawrence to be
“chronically under-performing”.
The state declared
six schools throughout the Commonwealth
to be “under-performing” today,
three of them were from Lawrence.
They are: The International High School,
The Business High School, and the
Leonard. This brings the total of
underperforming schools in Lawrence to
five. Already underperforming are the
Arlington Elementary and the SLE middle
school.
State Sources told the Valley Patriot
last week that the Department of
Education was giving Lantigua the
opportunity to “ask for receivership”
rather than announcing that they were
coming in on their own. Lantigua met with
Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester
within the last ten days when the news
was delivered to the embattled Lawrence
mayor.
Today the mayor released a statement
saying he was announcing a “partnership”
with the State’s Department of
Education, but later in the letter he
calls it “oversight” and asks
for a “receiver”.
“As of today, I have asked
Commissioner Chester to take the
extraordinary steps necessary to give the
next Lawrence Public Schools
Superintendent tools to reform our school
system. In this request, I am seeking
immediate state oversight, including the
appointment of a Receiver, pursuant to
all applicable laws within the
Commissioner’s authority to assist
Lawrence Public Schools,” Lantigua’s
statement said.
But School Committeeman Sammy Reyes says
he isn’t sure the mayor can act
unilaterally without a vote of the school
committee.
Reyes says he finds it "disturbing
that mayor Lantigua is acting alone on
this. We are a board of seven not a board
of one. I find it disturbing that he is
making these decisions without the school
committee. I'm not sure how legal this
is."
In 1997 THE Department of Education tried
to take over the schools with the
blessing of (then) mayor Mary Claire
Kennedy but the school committee took a
vote to file a court action stopping the
state from coming in. As the result of
that action the state had to work with
the Lawrence School Committee in a
partnership that kept local control of
the curriculum and the finances.
No Superintendent
Earlier this year Lantigua blocked a
measure that would have kept Acting
Superintendent, Mary Lou Bergeron on
board as the permanent superintendent. He
also blocked a measure to extend her
contract as “acting” while the
school system looked for a replacement of
Wilfredo Laboy. Bergeron took over the
post in an acting position when Wilfredo
Laboy was removed nearly two years ago.
She was the assistant superintendent at
the time.
Laboy was fired by the school committee
in connection with the print shop scandal
nearly two years ago when it was learned
that Israel Reyes (a then candidate for
mayor) was using the school department’s
printing machine to make campaign
material for other candidates. Reyes has
pleaded guilty to one felony in that
case. Laboy’s trial is set to start
this month.
The Lawrence School Committee had called
for a nation-wide search for candidates
to replace Laboy and of the seventeen
candidates that applied, not one could be
recommended by the search committee. This
left Lawrence a few short months to
either: find a new superintendent, or
extend
Bergeron’s contract for another
year.
Bergeron’s contract runs out at the
end of December this year.
Receivership for Lawrence means that the
State Department of Education will choose
the next superintendent of schools, the
possibility of the halt to all union
contracts, the power to hire and fire all
employees, either a dissolution of the
school committee or having them remain as
a ceremonial body with no power over
curriculum and finances.
The state declared
six schools throughout the Commonwealth
to be “under-performing” today,
three of them were from Lawrence. 
