Some of Mass. most powerful lawmakers appear at school committee meeting
By Jennifer Peñate, Shaun Ganley
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HOLBROOK, Massachusetts (WCVB) — Massachusetts state lawmakers offered their support for a mother caught in the middle of a battle with a school district, months after her family’s home burned down.
Family, friends, strangers — and lawmakers — appeared before a Massachusetts school committee on Wednesday night, making emotional pleas to allow the mother’s child to attend school inside the district this upcoming semester.
A fire forced Julie Evans and her two children to temporarily move from their home in Holbrook to nearby Weymouth.
The district’s policy requires students to live within the town.
After losing everything they had to the fire, Evans had hoped the kids attending the schools familiar to them would offer some sense of comfort.
The family moved to neighboring Weymouth after being displaced by the raging fire back in January. The blaze claimed the life of their landlord and turned their lives upside-down.
Evans hoped her two children would remain in the district this upcoming school year, offering some sense of normalcy, but says the Holbrook School superintendent told her that wouldn’t be the case since they no longer live within the district.
She says her requests to meet with school officials were met with silence.
“To have a policy that you think fits all is very, very misguided,” Massachusetts House Speaker Ron Mariano said.
Mariano, and other state lawmakers, demanded an exception from the school committee.
“Make a change tonight, change your policy, make an exception for a traumatic house fire that was less than nine months ago,” Rep. Mark Cusack said. “Mindboggling that we are here. This is done routinely in other systems.”
Evans told WCVB that after Wednesday night’s meeting, she had a private conversation with the school committee chair, who decided to allow her son to attend Holbrook Middle School for six months with the condition that the family prove they are actively looking for housing in Holbrook.
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