Parents Accused Newly-Elected Braintree School Board Member, Ex-Teacher Of Making Threats

BRAINTREE, MA — Newly-elected school committee member Matt Lynch made transphobic social media posts and threatened a parent while still working as a special education teacher at Braintree High School, according to complaints filed by parents, teachers and students.

"This type of person should not, and cannot, be in an academic environment and be teaching the children of Braintree," wrote one former Braintree student. "He does not belong in a position of power to students."

Lynch resigned from the school system in February, a month after he attended the Jan. 6 rally in support of President Donald Trump that turned violent as some attendees stormed the Capitol. While the 27 complaints mostly focused on Lynch's trip to Washington, they also touched on other areas, including posts he made on social media and comments made to parents.

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"This appears to be an angry man with radical leanings," one resident's email said. "You currently have him in charge of students who may have anger issues themselves. These students are vulnerable and impressionable."

Lynch did not respond to requests for comment. Last month he told Patch he had been questioned by FBI agents twice after he returned from Washington, D.C. and confirmed he quit his teaching job in February.

Braintree Public Schools released the complaints Wednesday — a day after Lynch was elected to the school committee — in response to a public records request filed by Patch last month. Interim Superintendent Jim Lee did not respond to requests for comment.

Three of the emails accused Lynch of threatening a parent who was among the first to raise concerns about Lynch's trip to Washington. Others said Lynch put students at risk by going to a large gathering during the coronavirus pandemic. Some wanted to know why former superintendent Frank Hackett never publicly addressed Lynch's trip to the Capitol. It's unclear if Braintree Public Schools required Lynch to quarantine after returning from the rally.

"Do you not feel parents have a right to know whether this man, who posted photos of himself unmasked at an out-of-state superspreader event, has been let back into the building to teach?" one resident write to the school system.

"I don’t even care that he attended a rally to express his first amendment right — although there is a question of what he was doing there on a school day," another wrote. "The concern is that this man might be a radicalized individual who is in charge of some of our most vulnerable students."

Students Crying In Classrooms

One of the complaints came from a teacher and referenced a Dec. 16 Facebook post where Lynch made transphobic comments and said the government was using the coronavirus pandemic to "create a police state."

"The year is 2320 and a gender blender non conforming spaceship asks a kangaroo identifying man what was freedom and how did America lose it?" Lynch wrote. "Well thats simple the government used 9/11 to create a surveillance state with the patriot act (see Snowden) and then used COVID to create a police state with lockdowns and controlling all movement with 'medical passports'(see CCP social credit system)."

The teacher and several other teachers had been asked by students, some of them crying, about Lynch's Facebook post in class.

"He has proven himself no longer deserving of the distinct honor bestowed upon teachers to educate, mold and guide young minds," the teacher's complaint of Lynch read. "He has disgraced himself, his community and his country."

Parents 'Dismayed'

The release of the documents on Wednesday was the first time Braintree Public Schools acknowledged that Lynch was at the Jan. 6 rally. But many of the parents who filed complaints earlier this year said the school system should have addressed the issue in the days and weeks after Jan. 6.

"Frankly, I'm dismayed that as a concerned parent with two children at BHS, I don't even warrant an acknowledgement," one parent said in a complaint to Hackett and Braintree High School Principal Christopher Scully.