Reporter Jenna Fisher tells the story on Patch this week about former TAB editor, Village 14 blogger and author Gail Spector’s decision to run for school committee:
Spector, a Newton Democrat who while she was editor for the TAB had to put her political leanings on hold for a couple years, said when she saw that Amy Masters a Chronicle producer was planning to run for School Committee for Ward her heart swelled.
“I loved the idea of a journalist on the School Committee,” she said. “Journalists know how to ask questions. Journalists know how to get answers, they don’t back down we know how to get what we need. Journalists are very resourceful,” she said. And they tend to be good communicators, the perfect person to ensure what’s happening on the committee is communicated transparently to the rest of the city, she said.
But when Masters fell ill a month before papers were due, Spector did some inner searching.
“I thought, I spent my career as an editor telling Newton residents that they should run for office,” she said. Uncontested races weren’t good for the city, or Democracy she said. “And here I was, my kids were grown, I love Newton Public Schools and the timing was right. I thought: “It’s time to step up.”
Spector, a Newton Democrat who while she was editor for the TAB had to put her political leanings on hold for a couple years, said when she saw that Amy Masters a Chronicle producer was planning to run for School Committee for Ward her heart swelled.
I’m super excited about many of the smart, first time female candidates who (like women across the country) have stepped across Newton to run for office this year.
That includes my friend Gail.
I had the honor of working with Gail for eight years when she was the TAB’s editor and columnist and I was its publisher. Although I’ve worked with literally hundreds of journalists during my career, I’ve never met anyone who brought so much integrity and deep love for our community as she does.
Gail covered school superintendents, mayors, the design and building of our schools, teacher contract negotiations and budgets. She’s familiar with great things that have come of our schools and the kids who fall through the cracks. And never once, have I seen Gail back down.
Newton schools are wonderful in so many ways and so are many of this year’s school candidates. But an effective school committee needs a diverse set of skills and experience.
We need someone who knows how to hold school leaders accountable, to scrutinize spending and to insist that our children are learning the right skills for an ever-changing world.
Gail is the only school candidate on the ballot this year who has that exact training and skill set. She will bring tenacity, great analytical and superior listening skills to our school committee.
Thank you for your support and kind words Greg.
We’ve seen over the last 5 years that a school committee member’s profession has little positive impact on its performance and can often be a downside. Rather, we need people on the school committee with a deep understanding of how the school system and school communities functions and the needs at this critical point in history.
In recent years, the voices of the people who work in the trenches – the educators – have not been included in the discussion of important issues. In the last 2 years, NPS has experienced too many racial, anti-semitic, and homophobic incidents in the schools and the school committee has not addressed these incidents until very recently. Newton educators need, want, and have asked for professional development to provide guidance when dealing with issues related to diversity. The message delivered by the superintendent, school committee chair, NTA president, and the mayor to educators at our all-staff meeting at NSHS at the beginning of this school year signified a refreshing change and was extremely well received. We hope NPS continues to move in the direction of addressing this serious issue as a system.
In addition, the school committee has moved to outsource custodians. The staff uniformly opposes this move, but no one sought our opinion, despite the claim in the official report. The custodians are an integral part of the school community. People who work in offices in all adult environments may understandably look upon custodians as those who clean space when in a school community, they do so much more for the students and staff. We need school committee members who understand that the people who work in our schools are more than a line item on a spreadsheet.
These are just two of many examples that illustrate why we need to have school committee members with a deep understanding of a school community and the school system in the current times. For that reason, I will be voting for Matthew Miller and Bridget Ray-Canada because they have demonstrated through their words and actions an understanding of the needs of the Newton Public Schools in 2017.
I will vote for Matthew. The reasons can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZswnH3cEZg&feature=youtu.be&t=43m30s – from about 00:1:29.
I would like to urge anybody voting for ward 8 to watch the video before making their decisions. I am not aware of any other taped debates between the two candidates; if there are, please post them.
Greg,
You’ve landed on why I’m excited to serve with Gail on School Committee. As a high-level board, process matters and good process is critical to our success. This is not the most stressful job in the world, but our work is not without controversy and not without public pressure. The most effective members I’ve served with are inquisitive researchers, objective analysts, and people who demonstrate backbone when taking correct but controversial positions. They must be able to persuade their colleagues, for without substantial agreement on a matter the School Committee cannot provide effective guidance to the school department.
My standard is to find the best alignment of skill set with position, and when I apply this standard Gail is my clear choice. Mayor Setti Warren, a full voting member and eight-year participant of the School Committee agrees. He almost never endorses, yet he has given her his enthusiastic support for this School Committee seat.
I will vote for Matthew Miller. His opponent is a journalist. Matthew has the skill set to be the best asset for the School Committee. He is a business owner, a creative problem solver, a parent NOW, has his pulse on the issues, and has financial acumen to work on and be thoughtful about the budget. He brought the innovative STEAM program, Destination Imagination to the Newton Public Schools. He is the President of the Oak Hill Park Neighborhood Association, and a Board Member of Temple Beth Avodah. He is a leader, and a role model, and has pounded the pavement for this community, and will be ready on day one to serve. Even with all of those true descriptions of Matthew, the cherry on the top is that he is the recipient of the JUDGE FRANKLIN N. FLASCHNER ADULT AWARD, presented to an individual over twenty-five years of age that has exhibited the highest standards of excellence, dedication and accomplishment to benefit the young people of Newton. Yes, you read that correctly, Matthew won the award given to a person who has the HIGHEST STANDARDS of EXCELLENCE, DEDICATION and ACCOMPLISHMENT to BENEFIT the young people of Newton. Vote Matthew Miller on November 7th!
Jane I don’t understand how you can say ” a school committee member’s profession has little positive impact.” Steve Siegel’s construction expertise has been invaluable to building new schools. Margaret Albright’s national education policy expertise has been a tremendous asset.
And when I think of the big controversial events surrounding our school committee — most notably the superintendent plagiarism incident, the evasive handling of the unreported swastikas found at
NorthDay followed by the school principal never explained promotion, but there have been others — I’m convinced that a person with Gail’s well-established integrity and skill set will be an equally important asset.I’m voting for Matthew Miller for the reasons Jo-Louise perfectly stated. He’s proven over and over again what an impactful leader he can be in Newton’s schools.
Journalists are an important part of our democratic system and I think they make good legislators. I would love to vote for Gail but unfortunately, she happens to be running against Matthew.
Considering Jane’s opening point, “We’ve seen over the last 5 years that a school committee member’s profession has little positive impact on its performance and can often be a downside”, I’ll share a completely different conclusion: The background and skill sets that our members bring into School Committee do matter.
Claire Sokoloff, chair when I first came on SC, has a background in organizational management and helped usher the SC into a more engaged, higher functioning body with better relationships with the superintendent and his staff. Matt Hills, with a background in management and negotiations, was a key partner with Mayor Setti Warren in reaching the first sustainable contract with our teachers in recent memory. Margaret Albright, an educational consultant by profession, has kept us fully mindful of state educational initiatives, policies, trends, laws. I like to think that my background as a design and construction professional has made a difference as we lobbied for and then proceeded to rebuild Angier, Zervas, and Cabot. We are a high-altitude board, and we do best with a range of skills and perspectives. What members have drawn from their professions has made us better.
I like Gail and I would possibly vote for her if she wasn’t running against Matthew Miller. He’s been campaigning tirelessly for a long time and he secured my vote back in the spring. As for Gail’s journalism background – it’s neither a plus or minus to me.
If Steve had been Chair of the facilities committee or on the building committees of the three schools, that would be a valid claim. He wasn’t. He was on the negotiations team. Diana Fisher Gomberg was the chair of the facilities committee and was the school committee representative on the building committees. Let’s give credit where credit is due.
When I voted for Steve for his first term, I fully expected him to be the chair of the facilities committee but that didn’t happen.
@Greg Reibman,
You and I have had our differences, but in this case I will say that I agree with each and every one of your comments here 100 percent. I think Gail will bring a great, professional skillset to the School Committee; a deeply inquiring mind, a keen understanding of policy issues, the ability to formulate tough but important questions and a journalist’s perseverance.
And — Good luck Gail!
Gail, during the Councils debate you asked Matthew a sly question (you know, the kind I would ask!) about trade offs between staffing levels and (I think) medical coverage. Can you tell us how you would answer that question?
They are both really strong candidates to be sure. Same with the Ward 1 SC race.
Also, it was the former Day principal, Brian Turner, not North principal, who didn’t report the swastikas and then got a transfer to administration.
Thanks Andy, corrected to say Day.
Thumbs down to Gail thanking Greg for his support? Why? Gail is a good candidate and I think the main issue is that she’s running against someone who started campaigning a long while before Gail and quickly grew to be beloved. But I don’t understand the negativity towards Gail, unless I’m missing something.
Gail Spector is my choice for School Committee, Ward 8. I join many others in endorsing Gail, including Mayor Setti Warren, and several current School Committee members. Gail has garnered the respect and approval, not just in this abbreviated 3 month campaign, but over a career in Newton from her volunteering in the schools to her work as a journalist at the Boston Globe and as the Editor of the Newton Tab. The combination of gratitude for what the schools gave to her two children coupled with her review and analysis of more than a decade of school budgets and issues has given Gail the passion and knowledge to be a compassionate and effective steward of our schools and our children.
As you know, more than a year ago Amy Masters Ribner decided to run for School Committee, Ward 8. Amy and I grew up together our entire lives and based on my knowledge of her abilities, intellect and journalistic background I, and others, thought that she would be a terrific member of the School Committee. She decided to run and I signed on to Chair her campaign. Shockingly, 3 months ago Amy had a medical incident that took her out of the race. At that time, one of Amy’s friends and admirers, Gail Spector was inspired by her fellow journalist’s desire to serve and spoke to me about picking up the torch and running for School Committee. She spoke of the gratitude she had for her children’s education and the time she now has, as they are grown, to fully engage in giving back to the schools and the city she loves. With a few months to go, Gail’s friends, family and several elected officials have rallied around her and it has been inspiring. On the campaign trail Gail’s quiet elegance and thoughtfulness has connected with many who now support her endeavor to serve.
As an effective member of the School Committee working closely through program and contract negotiations, one must have a keen intellect, patience and good judgment to weigh choices that will affect our children and our employees. Gail’s vast experience with the schools and her journalistic approach to investigating and solving problems makes her the perfect addition to the School Committee.
It has been a busy, wild few months. I have been involved in many campaigns, for School Committee, Alderman/Council, Mayoral and now Gubernatorial, but never having only a few months to connect with the electorate. This has been a fascinating political science case study with so many things that are different than your typical 18 month grass roots effort. But there are some things that are the same, most notably a good candidate that steps us to serve and life long friendships and bonds that are forged by people working for the same goal. No matter who you are rooting for, we all have been better off for being a part of the political process and discourse in our City. After November 7th let’s all pledge to start working on the tone and tenor of the political discourse as we put our signs down and welcome those who choose to give of their time, no matter if its your candidate or mine.
If You have a child on an IEP, Matthew Miller is by far the best candidate for Ward 8 School Committee. %25 of the Children in Newton Public Schools are on IEP’s. Matthew Miller is a tireless worker who is not afraid to roll his sleeves up to help All the Children in the City. I can only see a journalist critiquing other’s actions as opposed to doing the actual work & being a superior organizer. Be sure to vote for Matthew Miller On November 7th.
@Jeffrey Pontiff:
NPS and the School Committee have a lot of competing priorities and a likely deficit. I was asking my opponent: If you are willing to take outsourcing and the GIC off the table, how are you going to make up for that lost savings?
I’m not willing to take anything off the table. That doesn’t mean that I would support either of those options. Rather, I would make my decisions based on the trade-offs. Maintaining small class sizes could translate into cutting programs. I was trying to point out with my follow-up question that you can’t scale back on program without scaling back on teachers.
Furthermore, most — if not, all — the School Committee candidates seem to favor adding full-day kindergarten and delayed high school start times. I think it’s inconsistent to say that we should maintain what we have and add new programs but also take potential savings off the table. The math doesn’t work.
There’s a finite amount of money. We need to plan accordingly.
@Gail – You seem to be suggesting that “savings” is the frame through which you’re making personnel decisions. What about the human cost? Longtime jobs lost, connections between students and custodians severed, a critical part of our school ecosystem gone, safety concerns about an external hiring process for employees that we don’t control?
Balancing the books and cost tradeoffs are important, but decisionmaking in the schools should be about more than the bottom line.
@Bryan: I agree that decision making in the schools should be about more than the bottom line, and as I’ve said previously, I’m not sure that outsourcing is the right decision. But I’m not willing to take things off the table before I even get on the School Committee. I’d prefer to keep an open mind.
Bryan and I have had this conversation before – choices have consequences. Unlike advocates, public officials must bear responsibility for the consequences associated with their choices.
I may wish to maintain our current custodian relationship, our current commitment to special education supports, our current class sizes, and our current growth rate of teacher compensation. I may also wish to implement full day kindergarten, later high school start time, and the ongoing funding of our SEL programming as our 5-year grant runs out.
But budgets are zero-sum; increase an allocation in one area and it must come from another area. With a fixed pot of money we have to make choices and the choices I make on school committee are invariably tested against the standard of doing the most good while committing the least harm to our students.
For example, in our last budget cycle NPS had to absorb the loss of 26 positions. Our solution included the reduction of librarian positions and a restructuring of some librarian responsibilities. This was a lousy decision to have to make and it was met with strong outcry from the community, but we weighed it against other programming and instructional areas and concluded it would do least-harm to our students and allow us to prevent class size from ticking up very much.
Bryan, Matt, others — there’s no getting around that we must make choices based upon the bottom line. if we spend to support a certain educational value, that money can no longer support another educational value. Spending more here means spending less there. I say that we must do the most good while committing the least harm to our students. So please tell me: what will you choose, and what consequences will you accept for your choices?
I agree with Greg that an effective school committee needs a diverse set of skills and experiences and that is why I will be voting for Matthew Miller in this race. Matthew’s background includes executive recruiting, founding a STEAM program for Newton students, and the presidency of two PTOs, all highly relevant to the position he is seeking. Matthew’s indomitable spirit, passion, and energy will be an asset to the school committee. Matthew has a deep understanding of the issues and the trade-offs involved, and I think he will work hard to achieve solutions rather than be paralyzed by the trade-offs.
Gail’s expertise in the field of journalism and authoring a book lands her desire to give back to the community squarely in that arena. She can visit schools and give talks about her history of covering great stories in Boston and the suburbs. She can offer a class at Newton Community Education on writing and publishing. She can apply to be a college professor and offer a course in journalism at one of the many colleges and universities in the great Boston area. There is only one strong gifted qualified Ward 8 candidate for School Committee and it is Matthew Miller. Matthew has the skills and expertise and community leadership background and current finger on the pulse of the school system that is the whole package. I will sound to some like a broken record, but Matthew is the recipient of the Judge Franklin N. Flaschner Adult Award, presented to an individual over twenty-five years of age that has exhibited the highest standards of excellence, dedication and accomplishment to benefit the young people of Newton. Yes, you read that correctly, Matthew won the award given to a person who has the HIGHEST STANDARDS of EXCELLENCE, DEDICATION and ACCOMPLISHMENT to BENEFIT the young people of Newton. Vote Matthew Miller on November 7th!
@Bruce: All SC members work hard to achieve solutions. From my perspective, the members who are most successful are the ones who appreciate that our entire job description can be boiled down to “Managing Trade-Offs”. I happen to support Gail because she has demonstrated through a career of very public work that making choices and accepting the consequences of those choices is how she runs. I know from my 6 years on School Committee that a member who embraces this approach, whether it’s Gail or Matt or anyone else, has the potential to be successful. Trade-offs are only paralyzing if one doesn’t have the courage to acknowledge that they exist and then the willingness to make them, even when unpopular.
Gail – Outsourcing a whole department of the school community, thereby significantly decreasing their salaries, is a values decision, not a spreadsheet decision.
NPS has experienced cuts before and it’s never an easy situation, but we’ve never outsourced a whole department of valued employees who are an integral part of the school for the sole purpose of decreasing their salaries. Then I ask the question, “What kind of community do we want to be?”
Amen, Jane. It does boil down to “What kind of community do we want to be?”
To me, there is no contest between Matt and Gail. I, too, have the utmost respect for Gail’s skills as a journalist and for what she has given to the community. But as others have stated above, Matt has been campaigning hard and most genuinely for over a year now. His energy, creativity, and knowledge of our schools is impressive. The heart and soul he will put into being on the school committee will be unmatched. He is bright, and is a leader, all with a can-do attitude filled with positivity. I’m with Matt!
Every financial expenditure is a values decision.
Both the City and NPS privatize some work when it makes sense operationally and financially. On the school side, we didn’t do food service well, so we privatized to a unionized company resulting in significant quality improvement and cost savings. NPS uses a private unionized bus service, simplifying management and lowering costs. We have some skilled trade services on-staff, but much of our electrical, plumbing, and other trade work is performed by private contractors for better quality and lower cost than if we maintained them in-house.
These are all values trade-offs, and the result is that we have more financial resources available to put excellent teachers in front of our kids.
Our explicit goal since the beginning of our custodial negotiations has been to get cleaner buildings at cost savings, in hopes of being more in line with the expense and productivity of our neighboring communities. We have worked hard to engage our custodians in a productive discussion about creative means to reach this goal. Until Newton’s citizens tell the School Committee otherwise, this will remain our goal and it has been on the table as a topic for discussion at every collective bargaining session. Privatizing some or all our custodial services belongs on the table as well, as one model for how to get cleaner buildings and cost savings.
The kind of community I want to be in is one that keeps its primary school mission in focus. I believe that mission is to do as much as we can to hire and retain the best quality teachers, maximize breadth of program, keep class size down, and make safe and functional school buildings. These are my values. If one path to get there is to identify lower cost health care and school maintenance efficiencies, rest assured that I’ll fight to keep those items in the discussion.
Taking this further, it would be grossly irresponsible for me to preemptively take them off the table. This is a values decision.