Melissa for BPS
Platform
The MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education views* “the school committee as the publicly elected or appointed equivalent of a board of directors of a corporation, which in this case is a school system. The school committee has oversight of and responsibility for the school system, sets the direction in which the system must go, and establishes criteria to determine if its goals and policies are being met.” My priorities as a School Committee member will be to lay groundwork for a strong future of Burlington Public Schools while maintaining the real sense of pride and community that we have all grown to love. I will represent the parents of Burlington students as a member with a true, vested interest in our children receiving an excellent education.
I am a skilled project manager with over 10 years experience managing complex, high stakes projects. I am an expert at managing multiple projects and ensuring their smooth execution. I also have experience planning short- and long-term strategy solutions and managing budgets. I look forward to leveraging this expertise in driving execution of projects that the School Committee needs to undertake over the next decade as well as creating a strategy to support the growing and changing needs of the community. I am the co-President of athenaFamilies, an employee resource group consisting of working caregivers dedicated to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at athenahealth. I have spent over 5 years advocating for the needs of ALL caregivers and was instrumental in pushing forward additional parental leave as well as part time and flexible working arrangements for all employees.
Building a strategy means understanding strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Our school system has great strengths that we want to maintain like our dedicated teachers and staff, our commitment to small classroom sizes and equal access to transportation and activities. Like every district, we have weaknesses that we need to recognize and improve upon. We should work to improve district wide communication and areas of our curriculum. We need to capitalize on increased parental involvement and state/federal funding opportunities like Safe Routes to School. Lastly, we do need to be thinking about threats to our student’s learning. We have ongoing threats of violence, drugs and growing threats from social media that parents and educators together will need programming and skills to address.