In my campaign, I pledged to be transparent and accountable -- including by offering public explanations for my votes on key issues without requiring you to sit through a School Committee meeting to hear what I said. I'll track that here. I won't include every vote to honor a person or community or to approve routine contracts, but if there's something I don't list here that you want to hear about, please let me know.
Sept. 1: Once again I sponsored two policy matters. One was to ban smart glasses – ultimately amended to include other forms of wearable technology with surreptitious recording features – from our schools. Cambridge, like many other school districts, is often scrambling to keep up with developments in technology. Faced with yet another new technology with implications for the schools, including the use of embedded AI features that could be used for cheating on academic work, as well as the aforementioned recording capability, I thought we should get out in front of it immediately and then, if the superintendent wanted a more nuanced policy going forward, revisiting it.
The second was on immigration. A few things came together: the federal government's attacks on immigrant communities; the state government's passage of the PROTECT Act, which required school districts to have in place certain policies regarding the protection of immigrant students; and the Cambridge Education Association's ongoing calls for the district to adopt language making clear its commitment to our students from immigrant families. While Cambridge's Welcoming Community Ordinance covers a lot of this, the PROTECT Act had some additional requirements and I also thought it was important to be absolutely clear about our commitment to all our students.
Sept. 15: I'm going to start with what might seem like a surprising vote: I voted against the proposed timeline for evaluating the superintendent. Why did I do that, given that I think it's very important to evaluate the superintendent? Because we did not evaluate him in the 2025-2026 school year and the timeline proposed has his evaluation being completed in June 2027. I think we should be playing catch-up, not simply writing off the past year and doing a leisurely review process for 2026-2027.
The timeline initially failed, with Member de Paula Santos voting present. She then decided to support it, and I helped her get a new vote with a procedural move, though I again voted no. While it wasn't the outcome I preferred, I didn't want to stand in my colleague's way on this.
Additionally:
I asked that a vote on a contract with Edia Learning, an AI math tutoring platform, be postponed until our next meeting so that we can see information about its use. Before I sign off on this, I want to know how educators are using it, how many students are spending time with it, and how it's functioning.
I co-sponsored Vice Chair Dube's motion on equitable recess opportunities for upper schools. This was a no-brainer. Recess is important for kids and they should have equitable access across schools to both recess time and recess facilities.
Member Harding sponsored a call for a review of data from the Rindge School of Technical Arts (RSTA). In public comment, CEA Vice President Duncan MacLaury raised concerns that this motion would violate CEA contracts and potentially the law by giving the School Committee too much direct oversight over staffing and instructors outside of established evaluation processes. I reread the motion carefully with this in mind and my read – which Member Harding affirmed was his intention – was that this would not be evaluating educator performance, but the allocation of resources and staffing levels for RSTA's various programs. I very much want an evaluation of RSTA, but I would have opposed this if I had felt it violated educator contracts. Since I was satisfied that it would not, I voted for it.
Aug. 4: I sponsored a resolution supporting the Massachusetts Association of School Committees position on high school graduation requirements. Recently, the K-12 Statewide Graduation Council called for state-administered end-of-course assessments – effectively calling for the legislature to override the will of the voters who abolished the use of the MCAS as a high school graduation requirement. I embrace the MASC's call for capstone or portfolio projects instead of standardized tests, and its support for the state's Vision of a Massachusetts Graduate, a vision better demonstrated through independent work than through answering questions on a standardized test. The resolution additionally called for any new graduation requirements imposed by the state to be fully funded by the state. This resolution passed, albeit not unanimously and after vigorous discussion.
June 2: I ultimately voted for a contract with Curriculum Associates' i-Ready assessment platform. Vice Chair Dube had raised the concern that we should not approve this while the district was considering its screen time policies. My conclusion was that it would take very significant screen time policy changes to eliminate the use of i-Ready, so it was appropriate to approve the contract. For what it's worth, although I have concerns about both excessive screen time and excessive reliance on standardized assessments, I appreciate that i-Ready offers regular snapshots of where students are, with quick results so that educators can respond to student challenges in a timely way – unlike, for instance, the MCAS, where results aren't available until students have moved on to their next grade.
May 19: I sponsored two resolutions, both of which passed unanimously. The first called on our state senators to support a fix for the Teachers Alternative Retirement Plan, also known as Retirement Plus, to allow teachers to retroactively buy into it if they had been unable to opt into it during its initial somewhat messy rollout in 2001. Retirement Plus allows teachers to pay a little extra in order to be able to retire at maximum pension a little earlier. It won't cost the city anything, and in fact may reduce average teacher salaries by making it possible for some of our longest-serving teachers to retire sooner than they otherwise would. A fix had already passed the state House unanimously and, at the time of the vote, the state Senate needed to act – which did ultimately happen. For this I want to thank our local Senators - Pat Jehlen, Sal DiDomenico, and Will Brownsberger.
The second resolution I sponsored echoed the City Council's request that the city manager report back on the process involved in deciding on artificial turf at Ahern Field and the rationale for that decision, and further asked that the city manager consider the heat impact of this decision on the school property at 158 Spring Street. The decision about the field rested with the city manager and, to a much lesser extent, the City Council. After significant public organizing and pressure from some of the City Council, the city manager did change course and announce a natural grass field for Ahern Field. My primary concern in putting this motion forward was about process and community engagement – it seemed clear that the community engagement process that led to the initial artificial turf decision was badly lacking, and one of my key reasons for running for School Committee to begin with was my frustration with community engagement deficits within CPS.
April 7: We had three significant votes in this meeting.
First, I voted no on this budget. I want to begin by saying that this was a hard vote in which I could really see both sides and went back and forth myself. I'm very aware that some districts in the region are making major cuts, including layoffs. I appreciate that Cambridge is not. Avoiding involuntary layoffs, with the disruption they bring to students, schools, and of course the lives of those who lose their jobs, is my north star, and this budget avoided that. But I don't want to let other districts be a rationale for not aiming as high as we can. That's the short version. If you want the long version, keep reading.
I heard two main areas of concern from the public, both of which I shared. First, concerns about a reduction in building-based staff, namely four paraprofessionals. This is offset somewhat by two new teachers, and an earlier budget draft's reduction of 1.5 interventionists from King Open was revised. Still, I heard concern from caregivers about the importance of paraprofessionals, while educators told me that paraprofessionals are an important part of supporting the work of interventionists. If we don't support that work, we run the risk of concluding that interventionists are ineffective rather than inadequately supported. (I think this type of thing is a widespread issue: We say we're doing something but don't do everything needed to help it succeed before concluding it didn't work.)
Second, people are concerned about the number of central office staff. The district plans to hire a data analyst, which on its face isn't an unreasonable investment given how often we hear that we're a data-driven district. But before we do that I want us to look at where and how data analysis is currently being done in the administration, and be sure that we have the right structures and people in place to ask the right questions about district data and actually analyze it, not just generate a lot of charts. I have had the experience of being in a room with administrators tasked with understanding our district's data and realizing that caregivers in the room were much more familiar with parts of it. Let's fix what we're doing before starting to do more of it. In another move on the central office staff front, a current principal is being moved to a one-year district position, a move that seems less reasonable now, in the face of a budget that does reduce paraprofessionals, than it did when first presented. I've heard from a lot of people that it was important to have new leadership at that school, and I'm glad we're doing it, but if we look at this one-year district job as a direct trade-off of a couple paraprofessionals – people very reasonably have questions.
I also asked about tier 2 interventions. (Briefly, CPS offers a Multi-Tiered System of Supports [MTSS], in which Tier 1 is what happens in the classroom; Tier 2 is targeted intervention that supplements Tier 1, and often takes place in small groups; and Tier 3 is the most intensive, often one-on-one, intervention.) The Thrive Equity Audit concluded that "Core Tier 1 is strong, but Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports are not yet consistently structured or scaled across CPSD schools" and singled out the upper schools and CRLS on this front. At CRLS, it said, "the absence of standardized Tier 2 and Tier 3 curricula leaves gaps in consistent, evidence-based interventions." Superintendent Murphy responded that the equity audit is basically a little out of date, since its research was conducted over a period of a few years. Based on what I've heard, I still have some concerns about the adequacy of our Tier 2 supports, which are so essential to getting students the help they need when they're struggling to reach grade level.
My hesitation in voting no was that I didn't know what I'd be able to get changed in this budget in the time frame allowed before the City Council votes on it. Ultimately, I decided that expressing my reservations was an important way to lay down a marker that this budget has to be something we build on, that within the financial framework it establishes, we still have a lot of work to do.
Second, we had a motion to support the work of School Councils. I have been a member of a School Council that has had some challenges and I have attended meetings at other schools that showed how collaborative and serious they can be. I strongly support the School Committee doing what it can to ensure that these representative bodies -- a public body where, for instance, non-citizens can not only vote but serve -- can be effective. While the motion called for the establishment of a subcommittee on School Councils, it was amended to put that work in the communications and community relations subcommittee, which I co-chair. I'm looking forward to taking it up at our next meeting.
Third, we also voted on a motion to eliminate non-essential screen time in pre-K through grade two. I voted to refer it to the administration.
I strongly support the goal of sharply reducing screen time in schools, particularly in the early grades. I do have some concerns about asking teachers to make significant changes late in the year without planning time or support. For instance, teachers I asked about the likely impact of this policy -- while all supportive of reduced screen time in the abstract -- said that one use of screens in their classrooms is to offer differentiated instruction during WIN blocks, allowing kids to learn math or literacy at the level they're ready for. I think the district should, in consultation with classroom educators, consider alternatives going forward, but I worry about taking those tools away without time to research and implement equivalent offline tools.
Some members also raised an important point about the complexity of reporting structures required by the motion, which would produce a lot of paperwork for classroom educators and administrators.
The district is conducting what's often described as a screentime audit, although Superintendent Murphy said audit may not be the right word, because there is so much variation in screen time across schools. I'm optimistic that we will be able to make real progress in reducing screen time on the basis of the information being gathered. Anecdotally, what I've heard from parents echoes what the superintendent said: Different schools and classrooms have very different levels of screen time. We may be able to make progress simply by looking at what the classrooms with the least screen time are doing and offering information about that to the schools with much more.
Something else I want to see is a consideration of how the district's rigid elementary schedules have reduced opportunities for developmentally appropriate breaks from direct instruction, breaks that offer kids time to move their bodies and engage in play-based learning. It sounds like screens are sometimes being used to give kids a break when there isn't enough time to get them outside or even into a constructive break inside the classroom.
March 3: There were three motions.
First, Chair David Weinstein, Vice Chair Caitlin Dube, and Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui offered a motion calling for a look at protocols around delayed starts and snow-day decision-making. This was a no-brainer. I voted yes.
Second, with Members Richard Harding and Elizabeth Hudson, I sponsored a motion calling for 360 reviews of school principals, drawing on input from staff, caregivers, and, where age-appropriate, students. DESE regulations already call for principal evaluations to draw on staff feedback to "ensure that this critical perspective is used to support professional growth and development."
As of now, school culture survey data may be the only fully institutionalized form of feedback we have from caregivers and staff about their school leadership, and that is a blunt instrument at best. In the past few years we've seen that it can flag real problems in schools, but it doesn't necessarily offer nuanced and specific enough information to fully diagnose where those problems are coming from, particularly in the case of the caregiver survey.
And I know from one on one conversations that both staff and caregivers often feel not just unheard but actively rebuffed when they try to offer feedback about principals to district leaders. I get the concern that we don't want small yet vocal groups overly influencing personnel decisions. But rather than ignoring people, we could have a careful, standardized, independent system for soliciting information across multiple constituencies, ensuring that we're not selecting for people with axes to grind.
I think we always want our building leaders to have a growth mentality, and understanding how their leadership lands with different constituencies can be important in supporting that.
Finally, and this one drew by far the most attention, including a great deal of public comment, Members Hudson and Harding proposed that third-graders who have not demonstrated reading proficiency (according to a standardized assessment to be selected by the superintendent, which students would have multiple chances to pass) should be held back to repeat third grade. Notably, this would not apply to students with IEPs and multilingual learners.
The outcome of the discussion was that the measure was referred to the curriculum and achievement subcommittee. While I appreciate that Members Hudson and Harding wanted to underline the urgency of early literacy – an issue I also feel strongly about – I would not be able to support this as written.
First, I think it's important to recognize the research showing that being held back has, at best, no effect on development, as even studies that find some positive outcomes find that they are balanced by negative outcomes. Other studies have found long-term negative outcomes such as increased likelihood of dropping out of school and reduced annual earnings in adulthood.
Second, I'm concerned that when schools organize learning around passing a specific test, kids learn to pass that test, but may not learn either more broadly or more deeply. We see in Mississippi that fourth-grade reading scores – the thing the state has invested heavily in – have risen to a genuinely impressive extent. But eighth-grade scores have been stagnant even as several years worth of the fourth-graders whose performance was dubbed a miracle have reached eighth grade. As was said during public comment, that should be a red flag, because we want to prepare students for when they leave CPS, not necessarily for a waypoint during their educational journey.
Third, while Member Harding in particular was dismissive of the idea of focusing on educational growth rather than raw proficiency scores, I understand growth as a critically important measure. Let's say a kid started third grade two grade levels behind and ended it one grade level behind. Should we hold them back? Or should we say great, let's keep making that level of progress in fourth grade?
Finally, we need to hear from educators about what would help. In fact, a number of educators offered public comment emphasizing that they understand this issue and want to work with us. We can partner with them, and with our administration, to develop robust solutions, and we should. No educator wants kids to end the school year not having made adequate progress. Let's find out what supports are needed to ensure that doesn't happen.
I also want to flag important context offered by CPS director of ELA/literacy Emily Bryan, who said that while this motion exempted students with IEPs and multilingual learners from being retained after third grade, in fact those students are where we see the largest gaps. She emphasized that a comparatively small number (somewhere around 25) of gen ed students are not reading on grade level in grade three, and a large majority of those are approaching grade level by this point in grade four. While we want every kid in Cambridge to be reading at grade level, the reality is that the numbers among gen ed students do not point to a crisis. By contrast, there is much more work to be done among the highest-needs students – and Bryan and Dr. Heather Francis, executive director of academics, pointed to systems that already have been put in place or are planned for improvement in the next year to accomplish that. This is something the School Committee will obviously be watching very closely.
Feb. 3: I put forward two motions, both of which were referred to subcommittee.
First, as I promised during my campaign, I proposed (with Chair David Weinstein and Vice Chair Caitlin Dube) adding a representative of the Cambridge Education Association as a nonvoting member of the School Committee, just as we have two student members. I believe that educators should have a voice in their working conditions, but more than that, I know that we lose out on vast expertise when we don't regularly hear from the people who are in classrooms every day with students. I believe we should be ready to learn from them, to hear what's working and what's not and what we need to think about that wouldn't necessarily occur to people who are focused solely on data and metrics.
Member Richard Harding proposed an amendment to include a long series of parent groups as nonvoting members if we included the CEA. That amendment was also referred to committee, but I voted no. Here's why: I have the utmost respect for groups like the Cambridge Families of Color Coalition, Cambridge Families of Asian Descent (which endorsed me last fall), and others Member Harding named. And I want to change the School Committee's agenda-setting rules so that we have more flexibility to bring in representatives of parent and community groups to present or testify outside of public comment, and I envision many scenarios in which we would want to hear from groups Member Harding listed. But none of these groups, as far as I know, have more than 1,500 members, all of whom are stakeholders in our schools, and a rigorous structure of elected leadership. Additionally, many members of these groups are Cambridge voters who vote for School Committee and are allowed to run for School Committee themselves. We are their representatives, and it's important to me to act that way. But many educators in Cambridge cannot afford to live in Cambridge, and the ones who do are barred from running for School Committee here.
I also proposed (with Member Elizabeth Hudson) a motion removing a single section from the rules of the School Committee. Specifically, "Promote a formal atmosphere, with members referring to other members in the third person, and speaking to each other and to members of the public through the Chair." From what I've heard, many members of the public find the excessive formality of our School Committee alienating, and I have been one of them. People constantly referring to each other in the third person and having to say "through you, Mr. Chair" rather than simply addressing questions directly to the people they're asking questions of sounds ... kind of silly, to be honest, as well as clunky and inefficient. Some of the longer-tenured members of the Committee questioned whether we could run a meeting without this provision in our rules. The simple answer, which I will bring to the subcommittee, is that neighboring cities and towns do just fine without it.
Jan. 5: We voted in David Weinstein as chair and Caitlin Dube as vice chair. The votes were 5-2 in favor of David and 5 in favor of Caitlin, 2 present. Only the chair's race was contested in the end: Elizabeth Hudson was the other candidate for chair. Supporting Caitlin was an easy choice for me, and not solely because no one else was nominated. I got to know Caitlin pretty well during the campaign and since, and I have been consistently impressed by her extensive knowledge and experience in education, but even more so by her ambitious and optimistic vision for Cambridge Public Schools. I think she'll be excellent in leadership. David Weinstein is the longest continually-serving member of the School Committee, and on a body with three new members (and a fourth entering her second term) I think that experience can be valuable, More so, I appreciate that David is a person who seeks consensus, values collaboration, and is genuinely receptive to varying points of view, and I think those are particularly important qualities for a chair. For her part, Elizabeth would have brought a formidable intellect, work ethic, and organizational skills to the position. I expect that she'll be a leader on the Committee throughout the term, irrespective of title. I am looking forward to working with all three of them, and with Luisa, Richard, and Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui as well.
One note: I think several in city government, and some Members, are of the view that the Chair must be a person who has previously served a term in city government. I don't share that view, personally, although I respect it. I hope and expect that as the School Committee gets more accustomed to selecting its own chair, we may see more first-time members pursuing leadership, even the chair.
Jan. 20: The major votes we took today concerned financial authorizations for two contracts with law firms -- one which the School Committee has retained for several years, in large part to handle contract negotiations and other tasks on behalf of the district, and one (Norris Murray Peloquin) which has done a significant amount of work for the district itself, particularly in the absence of District in-house counsel over the past several months (as our former in-house lawyer, Maureen MacFarlane, retired over the summer).
I voted against the authorization for the first firm, and in favor of the second authorization. For the Norris Murray contract, as I stated in the meeting, I do see a difference between a firm retained by the School Committee for whom the School Committee is the client, and one for whom district administration is the client that is performing services that would ordinarily be done in-house. I feel pretty strongly that, where possible, clients should be able to pick their own lawyers -- and where the District is the client, they should generally be in a position to select the outside counsel they want. Similarly, when the District ultimately hires someone to fill Maureen's position, the Superintendent will be the final decisionmaker, even if I or other members advise on that choice.
For the first contract, these are going to be the School Committee's lawyers. One of the aggravating factors is that the School Committee is about to enter negotiations with the CEA over several new contracts, so there is a significant urgency behind retaining counsel. For the same reason, however -- that those negotiations are critical -- I do not like going into them without a more robust process of selecting counsel of our choice -- particularly given that we are hoping to build a more collaborative and mutually productive relationship with the CEA than the School Committee has sometimes had in the past. So I voted against, although I knew that the contract would be approved by a majority of the school committee.
In the end, though, I think Banke Oluwole -- a CPS educator and CEA member who spoke at public comment -- had the right of it. Banke actually recommended that the School Committee approve the contract given the imminence of negotiations, but reminded us that good lawyers follow the lead of their clients, and it will be the School Committee, not the law firm, that drives negotiations and sets the tone. I hope and expect that that will be the case with our lawyers, and with our new School Committee.