I am the proud parent of two Northampton Public School students, who have attended since preschool, and a fierce supporter of our schools. Our state government’s chronic under-funding of our city’s schools is a travesty, which has left our amazing administrators, teachers, staff, and students trying to do more with less, and which pushes more and more of the burden onto the city to fund our excellent schools. I will continue to do all I can to provide our schools with the resources they need, and fight for our just share of resources from the state.

As any caregiver or child support person can tell you, the pandemic has been very hard on kids. I applaud the efforts of NPS to center those students with greatest needs throughout the pandemic and their commitment to carry forward the lessons learned during this time. I have been blown away by the flexibility, love, care and extraordinary efforts from the teachers, staff and administration of our schools always, and especially over the last year and a half. My gratitude has grown exponentially and I hope to be able to support our schools directly as mayor and chair of the School Committee.