Word coming out of the School Department and from various members of the School Committee is that Dr. Omar Easy may be on the firing block or the layoff list in the upcoming budget talks.
Dr. Easy, as a man of color and ethnicity, has an important leadership role in a School Department administration that is almost entirely white.
Ironically, the new administration, led by a woman of color and ethnicity, may be the one to fire him or to lay him off.
And for what reason, we wonder, as many others are tending to do?
Does he not fit in?
Is he unqualified to serve in Everett or to serve as a role model for students attending Everett public Schools?
Those who work with Dr. Easy all speak well of him.
He speaks the lingua franca of Everett kids and their parents perfectly.
He is a gentleman. Perfectly. Exquisitely.
He understands the struggles of parents and children coming out of minority households and trying to swim upstream against a heavy current.
Above all, he is an educator.
Dr. Easy should have a commanding role in guiding Everett out of the financial and educational abyss now facing its 7,000 strong student body.
To be rid of him for political reasons is a mistake.