THE SAUGUS ADVOCATE – Friday, January 3, 2020 Page 5 PUBLIC OUTRAGE | from page 3 “Moreover, when the whole town made their case to the School Committee, they were ignored. We all need to remember that in our Democracy, the power rests with the people more than the government or its employees,” she said. The three incumbent School Committee members who were in the majority of the split 3-2 vote to privatize – Committee Chair Jeanette E. Meredith and members Linda N. Gaieski and Marc Charles Magliozzi – were all defeated convincingly in their reelection bids. Meredith, the most veteran member of the committee and its longtime chair, had topped the field two years earlier with 2,252 votes. But this time, she finished a distant seventh with 1,455 votes. Gaieski finished ninth among 10 candidates, plummeting from 2,124 in 2017 to 1,224. Magliozzi finished dead last at 1,122 – 799 votes less than when he was first elected two years earlier. Incumbent office holders became casualties in the other town political races. The Board of Selectmen – which had ridden a popular tide since engineering the successful 2015 recall of the four selectmen responsible for firing Town Manager Scott C. Crabtree, and then rehiring Crabtree – lost two incumbents. Selectmen Jennifer E. D’Eon and Scott Albert Brazis, who finished third and fourth, respectively, when the entire board was reelected two years earlier, both lost badly. D’Eon’s vote total slipped from 1,935 in 2017 to 1,447, a disappointing eighth place finish. Brazis went from 1,905 two years earlier to 1,385. In addition, 10 incumbent Town Meeting members – 20 percent of the 50-member body – were kicked out of office. Newly elected Town Meeting Member Peter Z. Manoogian, Sr. of Precinct 10 said he believes the election defeat of so many incumbent candidates in several town-wide offices is unprecedented during his threeplus decades of involvement in town government. “In the 10 atlarge seats, you had an opportunity to reelect seven incumbents. But instead, only two returned. It was like a revolution,” he said. “An anti-incumbent wave swept over the town. It’s very hard to knock out an incumbent Town Meeting member. But you had 10 in this case. The custodian thing really resonated with people,” he said. Room for improving Saugus Public Schools Two major stories involving the town’s public education system provided a reminder that it will take more than a brand-new Saugus MiddleHigh School – which is due to open this year – to improve the quality of local education. There was some encouraging news for parents who send their children to Lynnhurst Elementary School. That school was one of 67 on the “School of Recognition” list for remarkable results in the state’s 2019 MCAS test. But students at two other schools in the district didn’t score as well. Saugus High and Belmonte were among the 132 schools classified “among the lowest 10 percent of schools in the state” that were determined to be “in need of focused/targeted support.” The two schools were also classified as “requiring assistance or intervention” by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). In November, there was more cause for concern among Saugus educators. Despite spending millions of dollars to build a new Middle-High School and to renovate other buildings, there is no guarantee that the quality of Saugus Public Schools will improve when the new facilities open, according to a report released by DESE. “Buildings are important, but no matter how fine they are, they cannot ensure student success,” states the executive summary of the District Review Report of Saugus Public Schools. The 90-page report compiled by a team of consultants that visited the school district for a four-day period back in March noted “the urgent need for a series of change.” It cited a long list of deficiencies which need to be corrected to improve Saugus Public Schools. The District Review – a process that every school district undergoes periodically (Saugus Public Schools had its last one in 2010) – is used to assess a school district’s strengths and weaknesses and offer recommendations that can be used to make significant improvements in a school system. 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