The race for the Concord School Board’s open District C seat is a busy one this year. Three candidates are seeking the position, which is elected by voters in Wards 8, 9 and 10.
Concord parent and technology consultant Tim Fanelli, retired teacher Brenda Hastings and parent, attorney and former special education teacher Kate Vaughn have signed up to run. Board member Chuck Crush, who has held the seat since 2017, announced Sept. 2 that he won’t seek re-election.
Tim Fanelli wants to increase the transparency of the board for parents and take a stand on equity.
Fanelli, who owns an information technology consulting firm, lives in Concord with his fiance and his 8-year-old daughter. He has a background in STEM education and taught in the electrical and computer engineering school at Clarkson University for 10 years. He is running because he wants to see change in areas that frustrate him, especially the board’s communication and decision-making processes.
“It’s primarily a vested interest in my daughter’s future and watching how things have unfolded and how the school board has conducted itself,” Fanelli said. “I don’t feel that parents have been given any real visibility into the decision-making process and how things are decided, and even what the future might look like here in Concord. So many parents and teachers just feel alienated and unheard.”
Fanelli is frustrated by the decision-making around COVID-19 learning models, both this summer when the board voted unexpectedly to go fully-remote and earlier this month when the board voted to switch to hybrid starting in October.
“I fully support making informed decisions, but we had a lot of families sitting around, we didn’t know what was going to happen until almost a week before school started,” Fanelli said. “Our teachers spent all summer planning for hybrid and then had to completely regroup for full remote, now they are being thrown for another change.”
Fanelli supports a controlled expansion of access to in-person learning that addresses the needs of marginalized communities who might struggle with remote learning.
Fanelli expressed his support for recent student-led movements for racial justice, and wants to increase diversity in staffing.
“When a child’s exposure is not to adults who are representative of their communities, and their backgrounds and the color of their skin and their identities, they feel from the outset as outsiders,” Fanelli said “Diversity hiring is critical to making sure we have an inclusive environment to make sure all of our students feel included.”
Fanelli does not support having armed police officers in schools, and believes SROs should be replaced by mental health professionals.
Fanelli says the district’s former policies around issues of Title IX and harassment created a gray area around reporting requirements that resulted in inaction and lack of transparency. When reviewing policy updates that were made in the aftermath of the Howie Leung incident where a teacher allegedly sexually assaulted a student, Fanelli said he was surprised a lot of the policies, like the ones setting expectations for student-teacher relationships, weren’t already in place.
Within the next year, the board will choose a permanent superintendent for the district. Fanelli said he wants a qualified candidate with a strong background in education and values transparency, communication and inclusion.
Brenda Hastings wants to bring her perspective as a parent, taxpayer and former teacher to help the board restore trust with the community.
Hastings retired from the Concord School District last year, after teaching third grade at Broken Ground School for over 20 years. She lives with her husband in Concord and has a daughter, who is now an adult. She also grew up in the district, and graduated from CHS in 1983.
“I really do believe our schools are a microcosm of our communities,” Hastings said. “If we have healthy, robust schools, then we will have a healthy and robust community.”
Hastings wants to restore trust with the community that she says was broken over the course of the past several years after the Leung incident, and bring back a sense of pride in the district that she remembers from years ago.
“The loss of trust is obvious and understandable,” Hastings said. “It never should have happened, it was an internal threat that we were not prepared for at all. We have to do everything we can to make sure that never happens again.”
She also wants to improve the relationship with the public by changing the way the board listens to public comments.
“I want to really work hard to encourage that we do more active listening and really hear what the speaker is saying,” Hastings said. “We need to be more aware of what other people’s perceptions are.”
Hastings says the district has been doing a good job with handling education during COVID-19, considering the difficult circumstances. She is looking forward to seeing students return to schools, when it is safe to do so.
When it comes to racial justice in the district, Hastings said she would love to see more diversity in Concord’s teaching staff, and she recommends listening to students.
“I believe there are problems and we need to listen to the students who are saying ‘these things are happening here,’” Hastings said. “Because we don’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening, and we need to give them a respectful ear so we can help to make it better.”
Hastings believes SROs are necessary to maintaining safety in the schools. But she says schools need to do everything they can to make the relationship between the officers and the students friendly, and based on mutual trust.
In choosing a new superintendent, Hastings said she would look for someone who is willing to make a long-term commitment to the district, and someone who has had experience in a city district that has handled issues similar to Concord’s.
“I don’t have a personal agenda other than just wanting to really help the students in our school district really become lifelong learners,” Hastings said, “making that as easy for them, and as safe and comfortable for them as I can.”
Kate Vaughn is running with the goal of improving equity in schools, and helping to guide the district through the challenges of COVID-19.
Vaughn lives in Concord with her wife and daughter, who will start pre-K at Mill Brook School next year. Vaughn currently works at Riverstone Resources in Manchester and is an attorney who has done civil litigation, environmental law and has advised schools on personnel matters, policy and boundary training. Before attending law school, she was a special education teacher in Massachusetts. She also served on several boards including one term on the Manchester Board of School Committee from 2010 to 2012.
“It’s always been a part of my professional life, but also a personal passion,” Vaughn said about education. “I believe there’s nothing more important that the government does than educate people.”
Vaughn’s top priorities are examining the impact of COVID-19, increasing racial justice and reducing sexual discrimination and harassment, and selecting a qualified permanent superintendent.
She also wants to make the school board more accessible to the public, make it easier to participate in board meetings remotely and holding meetings in different locations around town.
“One thing the pandemic has done is teach us technology can work,” Vaughn said. “Allowing people to call in to provide public comments is important because a lot of people who have things to say have obligations in the evenings.”
Vaughn wants to make sure families are getting what they need from schools during the pandemic, and also to address the social and emotional trauma the pandemic has on students. She also says the decision on a remote learning model occurred too late in the summer, making it difficult for caregivers to come up with a plan.
Racial justice is one of Vaughn’s main priorities. She wants to re-examine the way schools discipline students, and she is in favor of replacing SROs with social workers and mental health professionals.
“The district and the board need to be focused on making sure we increase the representation of Black, Brown, people of color in teaching and administrative positions within the district,” Vaughn said. “We need to be looking at the curriculum and making sure it is culturally relevant for all of our students, not just some of our students and it’s not outdated and antiquated and exclusionary.”
On the district’s Title IX issues, Vaughn emphasizes boundary trainings, and the importance of reporting and investigating any suspected case of inappropriate behavior.
Vaughn wants to find a permanent superintendent who represents the diversity in the student body and is committed to equity issues.
“We are the capital city,” Vaughn said. “If we could really lead on a lot of these issues in terms of equity and things like that, I think it would be really exciting for the state and for Concord in particular.”