Outgoing Newton School Committee member Geoff Espstein wrote something on a blog thread about this year’s only contested School Committee contest that  I’ve never thought about before…

If Margaret Albright were to win the vote on November 5th, she would be the first School Committee member from the Horace Mann community since 1973.

With 15 elementary schools and 8 SC members, the average coverage is about 50% for each elementary school. Horace Mann has been out in the cold for a very, very long time in terms of SC representation.

On the other hand, if Andrea Steenstrup were to win, Cabot would have two sitting SC members with children at Cabot: Andrea and Angela Pitter.

Does Epstein have a valid point? I must say in all my years voting and thinking about candidates for School Committee, I’ve never once based my vote, support or opposition on which SC member comes from a specific elementary school.

In fact, while I can name all eight of our current SC members, I only know where one SC member sent their kids and that’s only because I know that member’s kids.  (OK, thanks to Geoff I now know about Angela Pitter’s children too.)

It seems to me that if these are city-wide seats, we’d expect our SC members to advocate for all our schools. Am I just being naive? Does this matter to you? Should it?