|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
New Bedford Public Schools are the city’s largest employer. They take up roughly two-thirds of the city budget. And the district is responsible for multiple $100-million capital projects in long-neglected neighborhoods. And of course, it educates thousands of children every day.
The district is a cornerstone of the local economy and government. Yet not many people in the community seem interested in holding its reins.
New Bedford has not held a competitive School Committee election since 2019. Contested preliminary elections are even rarer — records show none in the last decade.
This year, so far, only one of the three School Committee incumbents up for reelection has indicated she will run — though candidates have until August to file nomination papers with the Election Commission.
Melissa Costa, a first-term committee member, confirmed she will enter the contest and has already pulled nomination papers. Colleen Dawicki and Ross Grace Jr., the other members up for reelection, have not pulled papers or confirmed to The Light whether they’ll run.
As of this publication, just two fresh-faced challengers have pulled papers for the School Committee, indicating an interest to run. In total, these three candidates are vying for three seats on the committee — setting New Bedford on an early course for another noncompetitive election this fall unless more interest swells.
In New Bedford and around the country, school boards offer a ground-floor entrance into politics. President Jimmy Carter began his rise through the political ranks with the local school board in Sumter County, Georgia. And in New Bedford, an ambitious and bright UMass Dartmouth student, Joshua Amaral, ran for and won a seat on the School Committee in 2013, when he was just 20 years old. He’s now the head of New Bedford’s Office of Housing and Community Development.
“Life in politics is difficult, but it’s certainly something I’m interested in,” Amaral said in a newspaper profile before that race. He would upset a crowded field of seven contenders — including current School Committee member Christopher Cotter and former mayor George Rogers.
Today, Amaral is responsible for reimagining and reinvigorating the local housing market through first-time homebuyer programs, vacant property restorations, and attracting new investors and developers.
“Being on the School Committee was invaluable to me,” Amaral said in a recent interview. “If you want to do good in the world … you need to know how interactions with local government work.”
But without much interest in recent years, this pipeline into public life has been running dry. And the duties of managing the district’s increasing expenses have struggled to gain public attention.
That’s despite a national climate that includes increasingly heated school board contests.
“While school board races are generally nonpartisan, the politics of such elections have become inescapable,” wrote Paru Shah and colleagues in the State Politics & Policy Quarterly in December 2023.
Several South Coast towns’ most recent round of school board races included talking points from national politics, specifically allegations that school libraries were pushing “ideology” around race and gender into the curriculum. School librarians and educators fought back, and ultimately most of the candidates looking to remove books from libraries did not prevail.
These causes haven’t come to New Bedford. Instead, most still describe the School Committee elections here as “sleepy.”
Who’s running?
Newcomers Marcus Coward and Von Marie Moniz have pulled papers to seek election to the New Bedford School Committee.
“I’m really trying to inspire young people to get involved in the community,” said Coward, a 26-year-old New Bedford activist and college student. Coward said he works two jobs and aspires to become a police officer.
“There’s a lack of political presence in New Bedford when it comes to young representation,” Coward said. He hopes to bring new energy to policy discussions around the role of artificial intelligence in the classroom, Coward said.
Moniz, 39, the CEO of the South Coast Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, an economic development organization, also pulled papers for the School Committee. “We definitely need to have better representation,” she said, referring to Spanish-speaking communities that she said can feel disconnected from local government.
Moniz is the mother of two children in the district, and she said she hopes to better advocate for them and other children who have special education needs.
Costa, the incumbent, is a social worker with the state Department of Mental Health and oversees adult clinical services at a facility in Fall River. Her tenure on the School Committee has included advocating for the rights of immigrants and special education students, and she serves on the finance subcommittee, which directly oversees the budget.
The Light publishes in-depth profiles of all candidates closer to the election.
What does the School Committee do?
The School Committee meets once per month throughout the school year and oversees the district’s finances, collective bargaining agreements, district policy, community relations, and much more.
In reality, this often means the minutiae of paperwork, the disentangling of complicated finances, and the temperament to weather the slings and arrows of public opinion.
The job is also unpaid. Some districts in Massachusetts have moved to provide compensation or benefits to their School Committee members, including Boston and Medford.
Though the question of School Committee compensation periodically surfaces around the commonwealth, the pay isn’t generally thought to be the motivation for why people run.
“Engagment, empowerment, and education,” are typically why people choose to get involved, said Manuel DeBrito, chair of New Bedford’s Election Commission. DeBrito said running for a seat is a chance for everyday people to “make yourself part of the solution,” especially on the School Committee.
Plus, DeBrito said, New Bedford city councilors currently receive part-time pay (around $27,000 in 2024, on average), and that hasn’t made those races highly contested or popular either.
Amaral, the former School Committee member, said he decided not to run for reelection when he started a family. “I’d have given it more thought if there was support,” Amaral said. He added that parents could be encouraged to serve even if a small stipend covered the cost of child care during the meetings.
The Massachusetts Association of School Committees is the statewide body that works to support committee members, and its online handbook has a thorough breakdown of the responsibilities and legal requirements of school committee members.
How to run
Anyone interested in running for School Committee or another public office can stop by the Election Commission, said DeBrito. His office has compiled guides, checklists, and calendars that break down the process for anyone interested.
Deadlines for filing nomination papers occur Aug. 19 and Sept. 2, and a full calendar explains this cycle’s election process. The preliminary election is Oct. 7; the general election Nov. 4.
But DeBrito said that anyone considering running or getting involved should start by attending School Committee or other public meetings. “Talk to people,” DeBrito said, “like administrators, parents, and even the people on the board who aren’t running.”
These days, DeBrito said, many people prefer to “scream as loud as [they] want behind a computer screen.” But he encourages everyone to get involved.
Elections when the mayor isn’t on the ballot (like this year’s) may have lower turnout, DeBrito said, and that means “anything can happen.”
“Whoever’s running is what drives turnout,” DeBrito said.
Amaral also supported more people running: “People should get involved,” he said.
Email Colin Hogan at chogan@newbedfordlight.org
Any person that would want the responsibility of understanding the fiscal problems caused by charter schools over budgeting,and would go to the state senator, state representatives and the governor. To stop this burden on the taxpayers, would have my support. I have yet to see any committee members or candidates that represent those challenges.
How about we get rid of school committees altogether and let the actual professionals run the district. I’m tired of fools who have no idea what they’re doing ruining education, especially the pearl-clutching MAGA types who just want to go back to the 1950s.