Gabe Lopes To Chair Danvers School Committee

DANVERS, MA — Gabe Lopes, an East Boston native and global financial executive who was elected to the Danvers School Committee in 2022, will chair the Committee for the next year.

Lopes was unanimously chosen to guide the Committee this week at the first meeting following the annual town election in which Robin Doherty, last year's Chair, and Alice Campbell chose not to run for re-election.

Lopes graduated from Emerson College and earned his Master of Business Administration from Northeastern University with a focus on global leadership. He told Patch in 2022 that he ran for a seat on the School Committee to help the district better emerge from the impacts of the COVID-19 health crisis and the "negative press involving our schools and community" following a series of high-profile incidents of racial hate and bias in the town, including accusations of hazing within the high school boys hockey program.

"I think Gabe is a wonderful addition to the Chair," said School Committee member Joshua Kepnes, who seconded Eric Crane's nomination of Lopes. "He brings a lot of leadership qualities. He's been a collaborative partner over the years and I support him fully as Chair."

Lopes' first meeting as Chair included proposed cuts to a theater and public speaking class at the middle school that drew several young students and parents to the meeting to speak in support of the program.

"We focus so much on cognitive learning in math and science — which is all very important — but you need creativity," drama teacher Jessica Linquata told the Committee during public comment. "You need to know how to access that right side of your brain. It teaches you how to work through problems. It teaches you how to communicate, which is another huge issue that we have with our kids today. They don't know how to communicate well.

"The arts get dismissed and we are always the first to go. ... It's not about the data. It's about what they're taking out of it."

Superintendent Dan Bauer applauded the efforts of the students in the program and said that performing arts were important to the school community and to him personally.

The extracurricular performing arts program will continue.

"You can see there is a commitment to the after-school portion," Crane said. "At the same time, we know that we've had to make some hard choices when it came to the actual class. That's why (the students at Monday's meeting) are all here — the speech class and drama class at the middle school. This has been an interesting and challenging budget year with a lot going on and things that we had to prioritize.

"I just want you to know that none of us take this lightly or easily in terms of the changes that we've had to make. There may be a time in the future when we can go in a different direction too. We can't assume that just because something happens in one year it will happen forever.

"All of the students who came up and spoke on all of the topics tonight have been extremely impressive. We realize that and appreciate what they have gotten out of the classes they have taken."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)