Vote for School Committee

Cambridge School Committee Candidates Q&A

18 candidates for 6 seats

CFAD posed the following questions to all school committee candidates. We thank the 14 candidates who responded and hope their video responses will help our community make an informed decision in the upcoming Nov. 4 municipal elections.

For the November 2025 election cycle, the CFAD Endorsement Committee endorses the following 5 candidates
(in alphabetical order):

Learn more about CFAD's endorsement process

The CFAD endorsement committee of 7 watched the video responses and almost all watched more than one public forum held by other organizations. In addition, we considered statements on candidate websites, attended candidate meet and greets, and spoke with candidates where possible, and considered past actions on the school committee (in the case of incumbents).

Each candidate was then rated on 8 criteria, including: understanding and expressing insight that Asian Americans are not a monolith, communicating clearly, demonstrating an ability to work collaboratively with others, centering students who are poorly served by the school system, and identifying concrete strategies for meaningful family engagement.

Learn how CFAD determined what questions to ask

CFAD polled our community through our mailing list on what questions they wanted CFAD to raise.

CFAD would like to note that although the question below got the most votes, we didn’t include it as one of the final three questions as we later realized the School Committee doesn’t have much influence over the issue of educator evaluation standards, which are set by the state of Massachusetts.

Studies show that students learn best when they feel safety and belonging. As in any profession, we have excellent educators but also some who cause harm to our students of color (a 2017 video by the CRLS Black Student Union speaks to such incidents.) What actions will you take to make sure that deficient teachers are identified and then trained up or out of a job?

Question #1

When students of color can see themselves and their culture represented in what they learn at school, it increases their sense of belonging and learning. This diversity in representation also benefits all students in cultivating empathy and appreciation for other cultures. Can you tell us of a time when you were a student and you felt the impact of either:

a) Experiencing diverse representations in your school curriculum;

b) Your heritage/experiences not being represented in your learning.

Question #2

What policies would you champion to move the district towards implementing more effective, evidence-based family engagement practices* including making schools more accessible and easy to navigate for families who speak English as a second language.

*For example, the Karen Mapp Dual Capacity Framework for Family Engagement

Question #3

The model minority stereotype means schools can overlook students and families of Asian descent (including East Asian, South Asian and Southeast Asian) who are struggling academically and in other ways. In what ways can the district ensure that all Asian and Asian American students are achieving, and what might we have to change about the way we gather data so that we know who we might not serve as well?