By Patricia Roy

The four candidates running for two seats with three-year terms on the School Committee are: Catherine Brunell and Dr. Shai Fuxman (running for re-election), Donna McKenzie, a former school board member and first-time candidate James Roberts. 

The School Committee is a five-person board that approves establishes educational goals and practices, develops the school budget, appoints the school superintendent and conducts negotiations with school personnel.

The election is March 26. 

The following is a summary of the candidates’ thoughts on what’s important in this election.

Catherine Brunell, 

11 Circular Avenue

Background: Boston College

Brunell said she will focus on budgets, fostering a sense of belonging and planning for future needs.

The Natick School District is about to welcome a new superintendent and create a new strategic plan. I’m running for re-election to the School Committee because I will provide steady and proven leadership during this exciting time of transition and possibility. I’ll focus on three essential elements: budgets, belonging and blueprints.

First, budgets: In the next term, we’ll work toward successful negotiations in our union contracts. And we’ll need conscientious budgeting to transition from using federal Covid monies to developing a budget that delivers sustainable excellence. Next is belonging: Students learn best when they know that they matter, so we must meet the social and emotional needs of our students and create a culture of belonging–for everyone. And finally, blueprints: We need careful long-term planning to ensure Natick’s future success, both for educational needs, such as an assessment of our reading instruction, and for capital needs, such as a capital plan that addresses the dynamic needs of our elementary schools and elementary schools.

The work that lies ahead requires a broad knowledge of the district, a commitment to data-driven decisions, and compassionate leadership. As a former teacher and a mother of five, I bring a unique perspective. I hope I’ll have the opportunity to continue my work on the Natick School Committee, where I’ll continue to listen, learn, and lead.

Dr. Shai Fuxman, 33 Eliot Hill Road

Background: Doctorate of Education from Harvard University.

Over 25 years of professional experience conducting research and promoting best practices in education.

Former chair of Natick Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC) and other volunteer roles in town.

Resident of Natick since 2010 with wife, two children (NPS students), and two dogs.

Fuxman will place an emphasis on collaborating with the administration and the communityto come up with a new strategic plan to guide the district for the next five years.

Strategic plans are critical in moving districts forward, like maps that help chart the way, he said. Community engagement is critical to better understand shared values, hopes and dreams and use that information to identify concrete goals and operationalize into concrete action steps. Transitioning in new school superintendent Dr. Melissa Spash as she takes the reins from interim superintendent Anna Wong, and developing a new strategic plan are both exciting opportunities to move the district forward, according to Fuxman.

“We need to make sure we get the process right and the resulting plan right,” he said.

Budgeting is a concern as the district and town move away from one-time funding opportunities that were available during the COVID years. 

“We will be facing a challenging fiscal landscape over the next couple of years,” Fuxman said.

Over the past several years, the town has made very important investments in our education systems which have already borne fruit in our students’ successes, he said.

“We must carefully balance the need to be cost efficient as a way to address budget challenges and not overburden the taxpayer, while at the same time maintaining key investments we have made in order to best serve our students,” said Fuxman.

The community also needs to ensure it is providing every Natick public school student with the best education and support possible, from the youngest students just entering school to the older students who are preparing for an ever-evolving college and career scene and everyone in between, he said. This includes supporting the town’s growing population of students with special needs and English Language Learners.

“To do so, we need to ensure we are using evidence-based and personalized programs and practices that promote both academic success and social-emotional well-being. Using research-based frameworks such as multi-tiered systems of support to ensure all students get the supports they need as well as universal design for learning that enable flexible learning environments to accommodate learning differences and the Science of Reading (an approach to reading that has been shown by research to improve literacy skills for students at all levels of reading). 

Dr. Donna McKenzie, 

7 Bolser Avenue

Background: BA, Smith College; MDiv, Weston Jesuit School of Theology, (now Boston College) and PhD, Graduate Theological Union. Scholar, teacher and chaplain. 

As a prelude to specific important concerns, McKenzie said, “We need to focus all our decisions on what is best for our children: their education, their safety and their well-being.”

She listed several pressing issues the school committee faces. The first is successfully onboarding Dr. Spash as school superintendent and providing her with the supports necessary to achieve the district’s goals. The school committee should also “work collaboratively to grow and retain her over the long run.” 

McKenzie also believes budgeting must reflect the identified needs of the students including addressing a $750,000 shortfall in the school budget that was proposed by interim Superintendent Bella Wong. The budget must also support “our teachers and staff who are our greatest capital,” McKenzie said.

Designing and implementing the development of a five-year strategic plan for schools to strengthen and focus the work of the district on the educational needs of the students is another important challenge.

The school committee is also responsible for enacting policies that help develop the whole student, she said.

“Calling out and addressing through policies and practices antisemitism, racism, transphobia, non-binary phobia, acts against disabled students, and all that diminishes the empathy and collaboration constitutive of a portrait of a graduate,” according to McKenzie.

She also cited the oversight of the literacy audit in the fall to support science of reading methodologies and reliable interventions including dyslexia interventions. McKenzie supports state-of the-art professional development for the community’s teachers to ensure children learn to read well and develop habits of lifelong learners.

James Roberts, 

18 Hammond Road

Background: Fifth generation Natick resident, graduate of Natick High School and local business owner.

Roberts has found support from parents in the group “Parental Rights Natick; for his beliefs against forcing gender ideology teachings on children.  He is careful to explain that he is not a member of the group, but he does have some shared values with them.

Roberts would like to see parents “allowed to be more involved” in this aspect of the curriculam, he said.  

“On the gender identity thing, it’s more of a parental issue. If a parent feels their child is too immature to learn about it, it should be at their discretion of when they’d like to introduce that type of subject to their children,” he said.

If gender identity issues are mental health issues, then the schools are removing the parents’ rights to oversee health care for their child.

He also objects to the possibility that the schools may withhold information from a student’s parents that their child is using different names or pronouns in the classroom. 

“They said it’s on a case-by-case basis whether they tell the parents or not. 

So it’s a case that a student could be living a double life with a separate identity and use of different pronouns at school. That’s not really good for mental health either,” he said.

At the Memorial Elementary School students are reading a book called “Call Me Max” about a child who identifies as a boy who apparently was not assigned as male at birth.

Though, according to Amazon book reviews, author Kyle Lukoff offers an upbeat portrait of what’s possible: Max learns that gender identity is about everyone having the opportunity to be who they know they are. Girls can like icky bugs and boys who identify as boys can wear dresses.

Roberts thinks for a seven-year-old, it may be too early to have that discussion. 

Via a Freedom of Information request, Roberts learned that one child last school year didn’t want to go to school because of a nightmare she had that a teacher cut off her hair, put a wig on her head and made her be a boy.

“There were also some major concerns from parents that it was too young for teaching that, he said.

In Grade 6 health class, he said kids are being taught that gender is in your head. “It’s confusing for the children especially when they’re going through puberty and they’re not comfortable with their bodies and then you’re introducing this other aspect,” said Roberts.

Part of the IMB policy is that if you teach controversial subjects, you’ve got to teach the other side of it which the Natick schools aren’t doing, he said.

On the fiscal side of the equation, Roberts is concerned about the positions created with COVID money to help the students recover lost learning during the pandemic. 

If the students still need help catching up, maybe the positions or at least some of them could be audited. If the students have caught up, those positions need to be cut, Roberts said.

He also supports looking at administration costs which he calls top-heavy.

“Maybe you can find money at the top and actually keep teachers on,” Roberts said. He noted that the town has allotted $83 million to the school district and is now looking for $89 million.

“I think with any budget, you can always go through and find something that’s not needed. The classroom is the biggest thing, having the teachers in the classroom and retaining those teachers,” he said.

He also mentioned that Johnson Elementary School is closing in 2025 and there are going to be some major decisions being made on what to do with the property. 

“I’m not anti- anything, I’m more pro-parent and having parents be involved in their child’s education having a say as a parent, as a taxpayer. You should have a say on where your money’s going,” he said.