The School Committee race in the May 16 annual town election is once again crowded this year. Five candidates are running in races for two seats.
School Committee member Christine Bryant is running for re-election to a three-year term. She faces Lucca Betti, Michael Condry, Justin Fosdick, and Megan Parker. Voters can choose two candidates.
Jump to a candidate.
Lucca Betti
Betti, 21, grew up in Plymouth. He dropped out of Plymouth North High School in his junior year but has since obtained his GED.
He works at Calisto’s, his family’s sandwich shop in Boston’s South End.
In a video recorded by the Local Seen, Betti said parents should have the opportunity to opt their children in to all classes outside of science, technology, engineering, math, and core classes required for graduation.
He told the Independent that parents should have a voice in forming curriculum.
“Whether or not it be certain classes they may or may not want their kids in,” he said. “I think we should really involve them a lot more in the process.”
If parents don’t agree with part of the curriculum of an elective course, Betti said, they should be able to withdraw their child from that class.
He pointed to some parents’ objections last October to parts of a proposed sex education curriculum for eighth graders.
“That’s why we have to have much more parental involvement throughout the entire process,” Betti said. “So that way no one feels left out.”
Parents can already opt out of parts or all of sex education classes in Plymouth Public Schools.
He said parents should be able to get a list of all elective courses for high school students with course descriptions and should be able to approve their child taking a course.
“And that’s just to avoid things that the parents don’t agree with being taught,” Betti said.
Betti said he opposes pulling books from public school library bookshelves but supports giving parents a say in whether their children can check out some books.
Christina Bryant
Bryant, 45, was appointed in January 2025 to fill the seat left open by Michelle Badger when she became a state representative. Bryant was then elected to serve out the remainder of what would have been Badger’s term in May 2025.
Prior to joining the School Committee, Bryant served on the Plymouth Public Schools’ Diversity Committee. She is chief operating officer of a shelter for women and children experiencing homelessness in Boston.
She is the parent of five children who have attended the Plymouth Public Schools.
Bryant said after a year on the committee, she is still trying to find her voice and wants to be on the committee for the long run and try to have as much impact as possible.
She said the biggest challenge the schools face is continuing to provide a quality education within the budget constraints that the town faces.
“We have an amazing visual and arts performing program, we have rich curriculum, wonderful voc tech programs,” she said, adding that maintaining those programs requires paying teachers and staff enough so that they can afford to live in Plymouth.
“It’s very expensive to live in Plymouth,” she said.
Michael Condry
Condry, 22, graduated from Bridgewater State University in December. He works at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital Plymouth as a security guard. He graduated from Plymouth North High School in 2021.
He said he would like to encourage more students and parents to testify before the School Committee.
Asked if parents should be allowed to pull their children from some classes, he said he cannot think of any instance outside of sex education where that situation would apply and pointed out that parents can already pull their children out of some sex ed classes. He suggested sending a questionnaire to parents asking them if they have enough options to unenroll their children from classes.
“Parents aren’t involved enough in their children’s education,” he said. “It’s the school district’s job to try to get them more involved. I think they should be involved majorly.”
Condry said parents must be able to guide students’ education as much as teachers do.
He suggested that the School Committee send parents a newsletter telling them what’s coming up in future meetings and explaining how parents can add something to the agenda.
“The district and the public schools serve the public and not the other way around,” he said.
Asked if he thinks any books should be pulled from public school libraries, he said he cannot think of any specific books he would like to see banned.
“I’m not a big fan of the idea of banning books, but I think there’s obviously potential inappropriate content in books,” Condry said. “I know that some alarm bells go off when you talk about pulling books off the shelf, but I really don’t understand why it’s controversial. At the end of the day, if there’s swears or sexual content or violence to an extreme level in books, that should be concerning at the very least.”
He suggested some library books might carry a warning on the cover or require parental permission to be signed out. He said parents should be allowed to veto books that they do not want their children to read.
“And then the schools should not be able to give them a hard time because the schools do not raise children, parents do,” he said, adding that the schools should be telling parents what books their children are reading in classes.
Justin Fosdick
Fosdick, 24, graduated from Plymouth North High School in 2020. He works in property management.
He said the town’s budget crisis looms over the School Committee as it must try to figure out how to continue paying teachers and staff enough to retain them.
“The schools are only as good as our staff,” he said. “Ensuring that our staff are well compensated is very important to me to make sure that we are retaining them in our district and they’re not going elsewhere for work.”
He said he would like the schools to continue teaching students to think critically for themselves and not rely overly on artificial intelligence.
Megan Parker
Parker, 43, is a teacher at a Hanover elementary school. She has been a teacher for 20 years.
She said she’s running for the School Committee driven by the frustrating experience she’s had as a parent of a child with dyslexia in the Plymouth Public Schools.
Her son struggles with reading.
“I dealt with many challenges upon that road, and I think this shows that this is an area where our district might need a little improvement,” she said.
Her son was in first grade during the Covid shutdown of 2020 and in second grade during the hybrid school year of 2020-2021. He was not tested for possible dyslexia until third grade. At that point, she wanted her son to receive an explicit phonics literacy program designed for students with dyslexia, either Orton-Gillingham or Wilson. These programs are based on the idea that English can be broken up into sounds. Parker said only some staff are trained in these programs and they are not available to all Plymouth Public School students. She said her son could not get those services until she received a formal diagnosis of dyslexia from a neuropsychological evaluation, which required a long wait time. In the end, her son did not get the attention she wanted until the end of fourth grade.
“So much time was wasted,” she said.
Dyslexia represents 20 percent of the population and 80 to 90 percent of people with learning disabilities, according to the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity.
“A district such as Plymouth, I expect to be ready for this,” Parker said. “I have been very disheartened as a parent. Dyslexia isn’t really that big of a learning deal. I can’t even imagine what other parents are dealing with if their students have a more diverse learning profile.”
She said she would like to see dyslexic students supported with research-backed phonics programs starting in kindergarten through third grade. She believes all students could benefit from these programs.
“Plymouth can do much better,” she said. “Literacy is all-encompassing. It’s the foundation of education.”
Parker said she wants to be a voice for students and parents who are facing similar challenges.
“It would bring positive things to the students in the entire district,” she said.
Fred Thys can be reached at fred@plymouthindependent.org