By MAUREEN DOHERTY
NORTH READING — It has been decades since the race for School Committee has generated such a crowded field and the five candidates vying for the two open seats bring their own unique perspectives to the race. The three-year terms opened up when incumbents Janene Imbriano and Chris Pappavaselio opted not to seek reelection.
This race stands in contrast to all the other seats on the Town Election ballot this year as none of the other contenders are facing any opponents for Select Board, Community Planning Commission, Housing Authority or Town Moderator.
The candidates, in alphabetical order as their names will appear on the ballot, are: John P. Barrette, Jodi Cloney, Jeffrey L. Friedman, Kristen M. Omara and Noelle Rudloff.
With the May 3 Town Election just 3 1/2 weeks away, the Transcript wanted to introduce each of them to our readers in advance of next Wednesday’s Candidate Forum that will be broadcast live via NORCAM (see related story) by asking about their reasons for running, the issues they believe to be most pertinent to the town’s five schools and the role the School Committee plays in the functioning of the schools.
All five candidates have children who are either currently attending the town’s schools or have graduated from NRHS.
The five candidates
John Barrette and his wife Michele have three children, Sam, Max and Nolan. Their two oldest sons graduated from NRHS and their youngest son attends NRMS.
As a candidate for School Committee, Barrette would like to bring about many changes. “Protection of pupil rights – transparency, consent and choice; an end to the COVID regime, and School Committee meetings which have two-way communication” are the main objectives of Barrette’s campaign.
“It’s three layers – transparency, consent and choice. Parents lack transparency in terms of a curriculum that is being taught in the schools and free and open access to the libraries,” Barrette said. With regard to the school libraries, he used the combined media center shared by both Middle School and High School students as an example where books dealing with mature subject matter that may be appropriate for juniors and seniors, but not sixth- and seventh-graders are accessible to all ages.
“The second area is consent: Parents – not DESE, not the School Committee and not the Superintendent – parents, have the authority to decide what subjects are appropriate for their children,” he said. “The third piece is choice. Parents – not DESE and not the Superintendent – have the ultimate legal authority to choose curriculum. These are all guaranteed under the Protection of Pupil Rights amendment, 20 U.S. Code, 1232H.”
He explained, “The Protection of Pupil Rights amendment is U.S. law and it gives parents the legal authority to be involved in the school, in the curriculum. That parents, in consultation with teachers, administrators and the school board have the lawful right to be involved in the development of curriculum and to approve, disapprove or opt-out of curriculum, and I think that is what’s missing in our school district.”
“Right now, NRPS takes all of its direction from the unelected and unaccountable DESE and that is the problem in a nutshell.”
Barrette also said he wants to “restore two-way communications at the School Committee meetings. The parents express their opinions or state that they have rights and the School Committee stares politely back and then moves on with business.”
“No. 3, I will seek to end the entire COVID regime within the schools. I want a permanent, in writing end to universal masking without parental consent. I will never again allow my child to go back to school wearing a mask because they’re not effective unless they’re wearing N95 and they cause far more damage than they prevent.”
“The second piece I will seek is an end to the unlawful promotion of experimental drugs. This is where DESE has gone way over its head – practicing medicine without a license and making up rules for masking and rules for unmasking based on vaccination rate,” Barrette alleged. “It is illegal and has no basis in science based on the FOIA submitted by a concerned parent to the Dept. of Public Health/HHS to show us the peer-reviewed studies that result in masking in schools and that show an 80% vaccination rate as a condition for unmasking. And DPH said ‘we don’t have that evidence, go talk to DESE.’”
Barrette believes that response by DPH “says that DESE is making it up and he (Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Jeffrey C. Riley) is practicing medicine without a license, which is an unlawful activity.”
Barrette also wants the enticements to children to receive gift cards to local fast food restaurants at the vaccinations clinics held at the schools and promoted by the School District to end as he believes this is a form of coercion to minors to receive a “non-FDA-approved drug” under Emergency Use Authorization.
“The last piece is informed consent. It is part of the law. You cannot promote a non-FDA-approved substance. Informed consent means that you provide parents a link to authoritative sources of data that discuss the potential adverse effects of the vaccine through the CDC website or other accredited places. Never once has informed consent been attempted by the schools,” he said.
Jodi Cloney and her husband Brian have two children, Jakob, a ninth-grader at NRHS, and Lia, an eighth-grader at NRMS. She excited to be running for a seat on the School Committee again and she had enthusiastic supporters, especially after last year’s “frantic dash” as a write-in candidate eight days before the election.
“Although I would have been thrilled to win last year, it was more about making a statement and standing up for what I believe and less about the real possibility of winning as a write-in candidate with eight days,” she said.
“As a town we do a lot things great in our school system, with academics we get high test scores, we have a Blue Ribbon school; there are a lot of things that our school system is doing well. For me I am primarily concerned about an area we don’t score as well in which is diversity, inclusion and equity. Whenever those studies come out North Reading is usually pretty low for a school system our size. I think that lack of diversity and inclusion affects a lot of different areas at the schools in who is able to access and benefit from the things we are doing really great.”
A primary concern would be to improve diversity in hiring, she said and adding more diversity in activities throughout the system.
“We could work on our diversity and inclusion; we could up what we do for Black History Month and Pride Month or incorporate those things a little bit more into what we’re doing curriculum-wise, in our buildings, celebrating our differences. That is something we tend to struggle with. As a predominantly upper middle class and middle class white community, we have to strive more to introduce our kids to these things than we would if we were in a more diverse community,” Cloney believes.
Fees for activities is another area of concern that affects access to programming. “I would like us to at our fees. As you get to the high school there are a lot of fees, and there are fees at the lower grades as well. I think that limits some people’s access to (programs, teams, clubs). In North Reading there are a lot of families for who these fees aren’t an issue and we tend to forget that there are families where (fees) are an impediment so how do we create an environment where they are still included and also treated with dignity and respect in being included?” she asks.
How would she make the fee structure more equitable?
“I don’t feel there is a way for people to not pay the fees that allows them to maintain respect and dignity. I am sure there are some instances if people directly go to ask. But could there be a simple way to push a button rather than go to someone ‘hat in hand’ and ask for help,” she said.
As treasure of the Music Boosters which faced a huge capital expense of buying new uniforms for the marching band, she put a plan in place to address this inequity.
“I recommended we take the amount we needed to raise and state we’d like everyone to contribute X number of dollars – $200 for freshmen, sophomores and juniors and incoming eighth-graders $100. But we also made it very clear that there were other ways to contribute, such as donating time at the snack shack or planning a fund-raiser, and we would work with everyone. We said if you can give a little bit more toward the cause and we’d make sure that would go toward another family. And we raised significantly more than our goal.”
The Marching Hornets will have their new uniforms in the fall of 2022.
She has seen a lot of changes in the town over the years. “My dad and stepmom bought their house when I was 9. My parents are divorced so I didn’t always live here until I was a sophomore in high school. I bought my own house and moved my family here 15 years ago. My parents were here for more than 30 years so North Reading has been part of my life for a very long time.”
“I think I bring experience in working with the town in different grade levels and the experience that comes along with having been through all of those.
Professionally, she has also done a lot of work in advocacy and having “substantial knowledge” in working toward goals of “diversity and inclusion” are important for a School Committee member she said.
“I also have more traditional skills. I am an operations director by profession so that means I work on budgets and with hiring and unions. I have a lot of the ‘bread and butter’ skills of a School Committee member as well.”
Jeff Friedman and his wife Hillary Brooks have a daughter who is a third-grader at the Batchelder School.
Friedman said his decision to run for School Committee was influenced by the example set by his parents throughout his life. “Both my parents did a lot of service in the town where I grew up, in Westwood. But I also have a daughter in third grade and a wife who has worked in education for over 20 years, so for me, that seemed like a natural place to provide service to the community.”
Friedman asked himself: “How do I think I can best help the town where I live and the town where my family lives? It is as simple as that.” An attorney, he has lived in town for six years and also works from home.
Friedman sees the main job of the School Committee as being managers of the budget. “Everything drives from that. Whether you are talking about some immediate issue or long-term issue or inclusion for full-day kindergarten or hiring new counselors to account for COVID, all of it is absolutely driven from budget, so budget is number one.” He also enjoys reading documents like budgets so he is quite familiar with the administration’s proposals in the coming year.
“Safety and security is obviously a huge. I don’t think there is an immediate problem at all. I think the schools and the School District have done a great job with it, but that is something you always have to be vigilant for,” he believes. This includes both physical and technological safety to make sure it is all up to date.
“All of that touches budget too. Need a new firewall? Guess what, that’s money,” he said.
“The third one is accessibility. Making sure all students have the ability to access curriculum – students of all abilities and all demographics – so they have full access to whatever is being taught. That means resources. That means making sure you got the ability to teach to all levels. I think the schools are doing a great job with it but to me it is the type of thing you always have to be on top of,” he said.
“I will put a caveat on that. It is not like the School Committee is directly involved at that level. It is making sure educators and administrators have what they need in order to accomplish that,” he said. “I do not view the role of the School Committee as being activists in terms of being in the classroom in any way. That is why we hire a superintendent who hires the principals who hires the teachers…. You hire people with the level of expertise you need to do the best job.”
Dovetailing with these goals Friedman said he would like “to make sure educators have what they need so that they feel supported. If they want to run an after school program is there an after school bus?” he said, acknowledging that this need was addressed locally in the FY22 budget. “Are they getting what they need to run the programs they want because from my experiences teachers really want to be great and they really want to do a great job, and if you give them the opportunity, they’ll shine.”
Kristen Omara and her husband Sean have two children, a preschooler, Zachary, who attends the Hood School and a second-grader, Tyler, who attends the Little School.
COVID convinced Omara to run for School Committee. “COVID happened, so trying to be part of helping the school district move forward from the pandemic is one reason why I am running,” she said.
At the Little School she serves as treasurer of the Parents’ Association and enjoys giving back to the community. If elected, she would step away from that role during her term.
An important issue to her and other parents she knows, especially at the Little School is student-teacher ratio, which she noted has been acknowledged by the current board and administration as a need that must be addressed at the elementary level.
“I think they are doing a wonderful job and I want to help where I can to keep the district’s reputation where it has been and where it can be,” Omara said. “Accountability and student achievement; I would be working toward that.”
Professionally, she was a bank manager prior to her youngest child being born. Currently, she is a stay at home mom. “Now that they are older I can be helpful to other people in a volunteer role,” she said.
Naturally highly energetic among the attributes she believes she would bring to the School Committee would be “my passion for wanting to help others.”
Respect for others is also a very high priority to Omara. “I think we really can’t do anything great if we are not going to be respectful of each other. And being adults we need to be role models for our kids and set the tone. What we want them to be we have to be as well,” Omara believes.
Noelle Rudloff and her husband David (who is running for his second term on the CPC), have two children who attend the Batchelder School, Arden, a fifth-grader, and Dorothy, a third-grader.
Rudloff said she had been considering running for School Committee as a “natural next step” as she has always been involved in the schools her two daughters attend, starting at the Hilltop. She has loved all of the teachers her daughters have had during their elementary school years. “Every year I say they can’t possibly get a better teacher this year because my girls have had such a great experiences,” she said.
She is excited that this year’s race has generated so much interest especially considering some years in the past when races went uncontested. She is a product of the town’s schools herself as her family has lived in North Reading for decades and many older residents may recall when they ran their organic farm off Gowing Lane and had a “pick your own strawberries” farm as well as farm stand.
“My background is in public health education and qualitative research. I worked primarily with a population that was geriatric but I designed interventions when I was at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for older adults with mental health and also designed training programs for geriatric providers as well as grant writing and grant management,” she said. “I did leave the field when I had my children. In the past three years I started up again as a consultant in public health and managed care.”
Rudloff said she is concerned about the “tendency lately to bring national politics into the local discussion and I don’t think that is the place for it.”
She added, “I do think in the town of North Reading we’ve had a really fortunate run with our administration and I think Dr. Daly, the principals and the administration did a phenomenal job these past two years. I heard of other towns where there wasn’t as much collaboration between administration and teachers. I think North Reading did a fantastic job and I was really proud… I wanted to support the work that they have been doing,” Rudloff said.
Among the strengths she believes she would bring to the School Committee are building relationships and translating needs into actions.
“I think I am quite good at bringing people together and relationship-building and translating people’s concerns and needs into requests or action. I have background in conducting qualitative research, so I am good at listening to people and translating their thoughts and concerns into actions.
While acknowledging that much of the role of a School Committee could be rather “mundane,” she would welcome the role committee members play in advocating and supporting student programs.
“I really am wanting to see what I can do to support programs that the kids do. That is the most exciting when you get to see the kids put together a new student club or supporting the arts programs. I am so happy that North Reading has such a strong performing arts program and the School Committee and administration has been very supportive of that,” she said.
“Community involvement is a really strong value in our household and if nothing else it is important to show our girls that it is important to be involved. Volunteering is pretty essential,” she believes. During COVID they made a family New Year’s resolution to volunteer every month. “We volunteered at My Brother’s Table. We made Valentine’s for police officers. We went to Meadow View with my daughters and their friends and drew cheerful pictures on the residents’ windows.”