Candidate Profile: Emily DiCesaro For Andover School Committee

ANDOVER, MA — Andover will have two contested races in the March 22 municipal election, including a five-candidate open race for two seats on the School Committee.

Neither incumbent — Paul Murphy and Shannon Scully — is running for re-election.
Andover Patch asked candidates to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles over the coming weeks.

Emily DiCesaro is one of the five candidates running for the School Committee seat, facing Jo Thorlin, Sandis Wright, Erin Cash and Shishan Wang.

DiCesaro is a user experience designer running for office for the first time. She has set on several appointed town committees.

Are you running for office in Andover? Contact andover@patch.com for information on being featured in a candidate profile and submitting campaign announcements to Andover Patch.

Previously on Patch: Service Club To Host Andover Candidate Forum March 16

Emily DiCesaro

Age (as of Election Day)

45

Position sought (including ward or district number if applicable)

Andover School Committee

Party Affiliation

This is a nonpartisan election, though I am registered as a Democrat

Family

Spouse (Judge) with 2 sons (age 9 and 12)

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

No

Education

BA: Graphic Design, MSc: Design and Digital Media

Occupation

I have worked as a User Experience designer for over 15 years. I am currently working for IBM on their Weather AI Applications team. In my role I am an advocate for the user and what they are trying to accomplish, and design applications based on that.

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office

Superintendent Search Subcommittee -2021
Andover Youth Services Steering committee -2022
Racial, Climate & Reporting working group -2022

Campaign website

www.dicesaroforandover.com

Why are you seeking elective office?

I am very excited at the prospect of serving the town of Andover as a member of the school committee. I am passionate about public education and feel that helping our children develop a love of learning early on can give them the confidence they need to be successful as they get older. The reasons I'm running for the school committee can be summed up in 4 areas.

Community:
Since moving to Andover in 2013, I've tried to find ways to give back to the community. Andover has so much to offer, in large part due to the strong community engagement, and I enjoy being a part of that.

Responsibility:
I feel privileged to live in Andover and raise my kids in a thriving community like ours. I feel a certain responsibility to instill important values like empathy, compassion, and tolerance in our youth so they are prepared for success in our increasingly diverse community and wherever they may go after they graduate from our public schools.

Timing:
Now more than ever I feel the town of Andover could use some new faces and perspectives. I have children who span 2 different schools (elementary and middle) and I feel very connected to the parent community. I appreciate the great opportunities our kids have but can also relate first hand to some of the concerns I hear coming from our parents and students. We have a great new superintendent and I think having a school committee that can effectively work with her as she starts to build her vision will be very beneficial to the school district as a whole.

Impact:
Serving on the school committee is a great way to have a broad positive impact on a large number of children. The committee oversees the superintendent, sets policy, and approves public education budgets, all of which can strongly influence the direction of our school district and our students’ experience in Andover Public Schools, and ultimately their experience after they graduate.

The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

I think there are many very pressing issues that the School Committee works on at any given time, and many of them are interdependent on one another. However, as we come out of COVID, the mental health of our students, families and staff needs to be a top priority. I was happy to see that our superintendent recommended the School Committee approve more social/emotional learning and mental health resources in the FY2023 budget. Moving forward, we need to be ready to adapt and react as we continue to support our education staff and children in dealing with the aftereffects of the pandemic. Working closely with the superintendent is a crucial part of this.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I moved to Andover from Chicago with my 2 young boys and husband in 2013. One of the main reasons we chose Andover was because of the outstanding educational system and the community’s dedication to its schools, students and educators.

Since moving here, I've been committed to giving back to the community. For over 5 years, I have worked to plan impactful, curriculum-relevant experiences such as cultural assemblies and field trips to our elementary students at Bancroft Elementary. We established a core team of teachers, volunteers and the principal to determine, based on the curriculum, what relevant cultural events we should schedule. We worked events into the school year that coincided with culturally significant festivals. In collaboration with the librarian at Bancroft, we found multicultural books that related to many of the events we planned so that the children could deepen their understanding of the topics.

I am also currently serving on two town committees to address needs in the broader Andover community. I am serving on the Andover Youth Services Steering Committee. In this role, I hope to help rejuvenate the spirit of the Cormier Youth Center and continue to make it a place that is welcoming and accepting to all of Andover’s youth. Additionally, I currently serve on the Racial Climate and Reporting working group of the Andover Commission for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In this role, I help the town strategize on how to be more inclusive to underrepresented minorities and those who may feel marginalized in our community.

I have also been committed to serving my community in less formal ways. For example, I have volunteered with the Mother Connection to help raise money for organizations like No Kid Hungry, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer, Lazarus House, Catie’s Closet and more. I have also organized many volunteer trips to help at the Lowell Wish Project, which provides local people in need with basic furniture, home goods and baby goods.

While living in Chicago, my kids were naturally exposed to all the diversity a big city has to offer. I feel it’s important to increase the exposure our Andover students have to other cultures and lifestyles that might be different from their own as we help our children realize the ways they can give back to their own community.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)

We really need to continue to find ways to improve the communication between the school committee, the community, and the district’s educators and staff. Our common goal is to do right by the children of Andover. Although we may not always agree on how best to achieve that, if there is strong trust among all stakeholders, and if we approach issues with a level of respect for one and other, we will all be better off for it.

To achieve that, I would love to see the school committee begin to expand ways for parents to provide specific feedback on important issues so the committee can weigh that when making decisions. This could be in the form of more working groups or committees, composed of people from different backgrounds and with different opinions. This could help foster a better community relationship, increase transparency and help us solve problems in creative ways.

I would also love to see the school committee members be more accessible to the community and be invited to attend existing school events like PTO meetings or school open house nights. By having committee members at these types of events, I think more people would feel more empowered to approach committee members with comments or concerns.

Another important tool is leveraging social media apps and blogs to better communicate with the community about the role the school committee plays in decision making and where their jurisdiction ends. We need to better leverage the existing role of the district communications director in order to provide regular updates from the school committee in current district publications so parents and community members can be made aware of the committee’s work.

Some of the misunderstandings between the committee and the community come down to misalignment on what people believe is the role of the school committee, and what the committee is actually allowed to do by law (i.e., hire and oversee the superintendent, establish and oversee the school budget, establish school department policies, and engage in collective bargaining with the district’s unions). When questions arise that are out of the purview of the school committee, I think it’s very important as committee members, to help people understand that fact, and direct them to who they can contact to get answers to their questions or concerns.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

Andover High School improvement plan:
Andover has a big decision to make in the near term about what to do to help with the overcrowding and facilities issues at the high school. Andover has applied ten times for support from the Massachusetts School Building Authority to renovate or rebuild the high school, but has been turned down each and every one of those ten times. As the district has sought and been denied state support, the cost of the construction project – and the cost of deferred maintenance to the current facility – have gone up dramatically. Andover is at an inflection point where doing nothing will be more expensive than renovating the building or constructing a new facility.
The school committee has a responsibility to help the entire community understand the options and the costs involved so that Andover can choose a responsible path forward. This will be a time when community involvement and thoughtful communication will be more important than ever.

Mental health of our students and teachers:
The ability of the district to support our students' and educators’ mental health is as important now as it has ever been. We need to explore every avenue to address the anxiety and added stress this pandemic has caused.

In my work on the Andover Youth Services steering committee we are currently discussing ways that the center can be an extension of mental health support to our students in middle and high school. Leveraging community resources like Andona and the Andover Coalition for Education could also help as we look to adapt and expand our mental health support for students. I am happy to see that in the superintendent's FY23 school budget there is money for mental health resources.

Acknowledging that the school environment has changed dramatically because of Covid is an important first step. On a daily basis, our teachers and IA’s see the toll the pandemic has taken on kids and it is crucial to support and coach them on what to look for in students' behaviors to identify kids who could benefit from more mental health assistance.

I have worked closely with the Doherty PTO and teachers this year to organize an ImprovBoston event in March that focuses on inclusion, acceptance and support. Making events like these more common in the schools will begin to de-stigmatize the topic and start to help kids realize that they are not alone in this.

I also think that finding ways to reach out to other neighboring school districts and sharing ideas and getting feedback on how they are addressing some of the mental health issues with their students could be very helpful too. This is a tough issue with no one easy solution, so coming at it from multiple directions and being willing to change and adapt our approach depending on what our students and educators need, will give us the best outcomes.

Another impact of COVID is the fact that our students' education was significantly interrupted. We are seeing kids coming into kindergarten very behind in social and academic skills. We should work with principals to determine what resources they have already, within the schools, to help better understand where our kids need the most remedial help and begin to address that. I would also like to get more feedback from our families, possibly in the form of a survey, as to what areas they feel their children need more assistance from the district.

This pandemic has been very tough on families, so we need to remember that supporting our families is an important step in helping our students. I like the parent-to-parent series and I think this is a perfect forum to continue to bring mental health support to our school community. Connecting families with other community resources like Catie’s Closet to help them deal with the mental, emotional, and physical health struggles is a very important aspect as well.

Ultimately, it will be the school committee's responsibility to work closely with our new superintendent to express these concerns and help get them prioritized in the annual budget.

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

An example of an accomplishment is being selected for the superintendent sub committee search. This role allowed me to work with a diverse group of community members. We had lively discussions and debates as we narrowed down the list of candidates. This role gave me experience into how school administrative working groups are structured, and the rules and regulations they have to follow. I believe we were very successful in narrowing down our search to the candidate who would serve the needs of our schools and community best.

Also, in my role as a Senior User Experience Designer, I am accomplished at working on teams with different people and different skill sets. We often disagree about how to solve issues, but I have experience communicating my viewpoints and listening to diverging viewpoints in an effective and respectful way. Understanding how group dynamics work and being able to constructively give feedback are very important aspects to my work. I will look to incorporate feedback from students, families, educators and the community as a whole when helping the committee to support the superintendent’s vision for the schools and forward the district’s mission.

I am proud of the accomplishments I made being part of the cultural arts committee at Bancroft and as I am beginning to do at Doherty. At Bancroft we overcame logistical and administrative hurdles to successfully create a system for actively incorporating more in-school and field trip events. These events are timely and curriculum-relevant for each grade level.

Lastly, my job as a mother of 2 boys is the one accomplishment that I’m most proud of. I’ve always tried to instill a love of learning in my sons because I believe that if their curiosity is nurtured at a young age, it will help them continue to ask ‘Why?’ and learn more in all aspects of their lives. Education brings a richness to your life.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

“Growth and comfort do not coexist” This idea that stepping outside your comfort zone and being challenged can ultimately lead to great things, is an idea I wholeheartedly believe in. Perhaps it’s one that has led me to run for school committee! I think each of us can benefit from taking some chances and being exposed to new experiences. Learning to seize the day and try new things is what makes us grow as individuals. And as we grow as individuals, our community flourishes!

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

As a UX designer, I am an avid observer and prioritize listening to people as I try to better understand their perspective and what they care about. This skill will be very useful as I plan to make understanding our community’s needs a priority. We need to focus on what the pain points of our school system are, as we work to come up with solutions that will benefit the most people.

I have never campaigned or run for office before so this is a whole new experience for me. I feel privileged to live in Andover and raise my family here and hope this is a way I can give back to the community. I certainly don’t have all the answers, and we may not always agree, but I promise to respectfully listen to all sides of an issue and look forward to hearing different perspectives.

Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or chris.huffaker@patch.com.