Lynn moms: School rule hurts whites
The Daily Item LYNN - A Lynn mother has started a petition drive to overturn a controversial public school policy that she maintains gives preference to non-whites when a student is trying to switch schools.
Patricia O'Malley, who is white, believes her daughter was a victim of reverse discrimination when her attempt to transfer from Marshall Middle School to Pickering Middle School was denied.
The policy in question is Lynn's Public Schools Voluntary Plan for School Improvement and the Elimination of Minority Isolation approved by the Lynn School Committee and the Massachusetts State Board of Education in February 1988.
According to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts general law chapter 71, section 37D, "racial isolation" occurs when more than 30 percent of the students are non-white.
So preference is given to minorities trying to switch schools under the policy.
But the Department of Education website states just 24.5 percent of the students in the Lynn school system are white, as opposed to 49.4 percent Latinos and 12.4 percent blacks.
