Margaret Albright pulled papers yesterday to run for Ward 2 School Committee seat. I believe this will be her third attempt but the first time she won’t be running against a sitting School Committee member. Facebook page here.
Melanie Graham from Patch has the list of incumbents and challengers who pulled papers as of 3:30 p.m. yesterday.
Thats Great News!
She has to get on the school committee this time around. She has so much knowledge, it’s a waste not to utilize her knowledge.
I agree with Tom. Between Margaret, Chris Steele, and Emily Norton, we already are building a really exciting crop of new candidates for the BOA and SC!
What Paul said …
Fantastic!
Anyone interested should take a look at the candidate’s web sites: http://www.margaretalbright.org, http://www.andreasteenstrup.org. There are vast differences between these two candidates. Simply look at their records and their issues/priorities.
Also, from what I can tell Andrea is running the classic endorsement campaign focusing on getting the political network on board, whereas Margaret is issue focused and in addition, for the first time in years, would bring real professional experience in K-12 education to the School Committee. Andrea’s work experience is in the financial sector and the School Committee already has that well covered with Matt Hills.
Further, Margaret has a real record of achievement to show and would have pretty much no learning curve as she has been intensely engaged in improving Newton education for years.
When Jim Marini was interim Superintendent in 2009-2010, Margaret met with him and showed him the data on co-taught classes for special education. Jim went ahead with a pilot and today we have 26 co-taught classes with much improved outcomes for our kids. Further, since the co-taught classroom model essentially replaces 4-5 aides by a fully qualified special education teacher, each co-taught classes saves from $50,000 to $100,000 each year. The savings achieved so far amount to at least $1 million/year.
So not only has Margaret been a key factor in improving special education, she has had a huge impact on our finances. Those savings are a large part of the current $1.4M budget surplus the school system is seeing.
Every week Margaret is in touch with principals and superintendents around the state collaborating on projects which bring best educational practices to their classrooms.
We have a unique opportunity here to add real educational experience to the School Committee and that will help enormously in 2014 when the School Committee ramps up its focus on improving education.
Margaret does her research and stands up for what’s best for our children. She has my vote!