Wilmington Candidate Profile: Michael Mercaldi For School Committee

WILMINGTON, MA — The Town of Wilmington's Annual Town Election is on April 22.

The offices on the ballot for this election are: Select Board, School Committee and Wilmington Housing Authority.

A specimen ballot is available online.

Patch is profiling some of the candidates. Here, we learn more about Michael Mercaldi, a challenger who is one of two candidates running for two open seats on the School Committee. The other candidate is Jennifer Bryson, who is the current chair of the School Committee. Terms on the School Committee are for three years.

Candidates were sent questionnaires and filled out the answers.

Michael Mercaldi

Age (as of Election Day)

40

Office sought

School Committee Member

Family

I grew up in a family of five and have two younger brothers. I live in Wilmington with my wife and two daughters: a second grader and a fifth grader.

Education

BS in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Ph.D. in Biochemical
Engineering from Tufts University.

Occupation

I currently lead the Corporate Strategy and Program Management team at Oxford Biomedica Solutions, a contract drug manufacturer. I have worked in the biotechnology industry for the past 14 years in manufacturing process development roles with increasing degrees of leadership.

Previous or current elected or appointed office

None

Why are you seeking elective office?

I am seeking office to give back to the community and help the School Committee continue their great work in supporting the school district.

Describe the issues that define your campaign platform

The issues I am most focused on are the new Wildwood Building/MSBA project, improving the educational and extracurricular offerings in the middle and high school, and improving district communication with parents/guardians.

The new Wildwood building, more formally known as the MSBA project, presents a generational
opportunity for the district to improve the early education and elementary school environment, by
giving our youngest students a modern place to learn. Additionally, it may be able to unify the town by having all elementary students attend one school and reduce the number of school transitions that are currently in place. Opportunities like this do not come very often, so I am very excited to work on this project and to elicit community feedback to ensure it can work best for our students, parents and guardians.

The administration has made great progress over the past year to improve the middle and high school curriculum. The most notable advances I have seen are better inclusion of social and emotional learning across both schools and updating the high school class offerings to better prepare our students for college or entering the workforce.

I would like to explore options and opportunities to further bolster our education to focus more on two of the largest industries in the greater Boston area, tech and biotech. I have deep experience in biotech and I feel that our schools, while offering some biotech classes, should offer more. We live in the largest biotech cluster in the world, where there are thousands of biotech companies, and they offer good, high paying jobs to people at all levels of education. I feel that we can do more to showcase biotech, along with tech, within our curriculum to raise student awareness for their future careers.

Regarding the middle school, I would also like to see how we can support the current after-school clubs and start up new extracurricular activities. For the current clubs, I would like to see how we can better support student transportation. An issue I have heard from parents/guardians is that their students would love to go to the after-school clubs, but finding time to pick up their student is challenging due to their workday commitments. I would like to explore options to make this easier on working parents/guardians, which could open more access to these great programs.

A new activity that I would like to see, if feasible, is starting up a middle school athletics program. School athletics started in middle school where I grew up. I was surprised that they were not offered in Wilmington (or in other towns in the area). I played soccer, baseball and track for my middle school and they were great experiences. It helped to give students a sense of pride in the school and gave them access to a positive extra-curricular activity.

Finally, I would like to explore opportunities to streamline and improve communication from the district to parents/guardians. The district has made great strides in becoming more transparent and open with its communication. Speaking with fellow parents/guardians, I have heard that this is a good step forward. Where they would like to see more improvement is around improving the types of communication and coordination. By this, can parents have better access to the information they need about their student's respective school? How can this be better coordinated to make it more efficient and effective? I feel strongly about working on trying to improve this because this is a critical interface where the district and parent/guardians interact. With improved communication, the hope is to increase alignment within the town and give parent/guardians the confidence to help their students navigate their educational journey.

If you are a challenger, in what ways do you hope to improve upon the work of the current board or office holder?

I am running unopposed and not challenging anyone. I hope to be positive contributor to the School Committee and help them continue their great work.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

I am in the senior management of my company and through this position I understand how governance and oversight works at a high level. I see the School Committee as a parallel to a Board of Directors for a company where the committee can provide guidance and oversight to the school administration. The key difference is that instead of answering shareholders, the School Committee answers the people. To this, I would want to be active in soliciting feedback from the people on where the district can continue to improve.

I have also been volunteering as a planning member of the Parent and Guardian Advocates for
Wilmington Schools (PAWS) group for the past few years. In this role, I have developed an in-depth understanding of the school district and how it works within the town. Two notable accomplishments I helped to contribute to with this group were to mobilize voters to approve the New Wildwood/MSBA grant and to reject the Finance Committee's proposed $500,000 budget cut in 2022.

Finally, I pride myself as being a collegial collaborator and active listener. If elected, I will only be one person out of a seven-person committee. To push forward change, I would need to build strong relationships with School Committee members, the school administration, Select Board, Finance Committee and other groups within town. I am looking forward to doing this so I can be an effective School Committee member.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

My wife and I have lived in Wilmington for the past ten years and we have enjoyed raising our family here. We are transplants to the area (I am from New York City area and my wife from Philadelphia area, and we moved to Wilmington from Washington D.C.) and we have been very impressed with how welcoming and supportive the community has been. I have also been coaching my youngest daughter's in-town youth soccer team for the past three years, which has been a rewarding experience. The WilmingtonYouth Soccer association is a wonderful organization, and I am happy to have been able to contribute.

As for issues, I would like to let the voters know that I welcome engaging with them to best understand their concerns and needs. This feedback would allow the School Committee to best work with the administration on continuously improving our school district.