Inflection Point(s)

Hey there, friends and neighbors —

It’s been a consequential two weeks. Multiple events intersect and overlap (because…well, that’s a system, I guess). 

The big highlights for me include: 

1) an incorrect unofficial School Committee election result announcement. 

2) the School Committee’s first official public discussion of a secret $40,000 contract to The Equity Process, a firm that participated in the recent superintendent selection process.

3) a joint School Committee - City Council discussion of how Trump + contracting commercial property taxes may affect the city’s overall financial picture.

4) a conversation between Superintendent David Murphy and Tony Clark of MBK, in which Murphy touched on his current and upcoming priorities.

5) tonight’s Buildings & Grounds subcommittee meeting. 

Item 1: Election -> Whoops -> Recount? -> No Recount.

On Voting Day, the city’s vendor made an error by leaving test ballots in the machine.

While this didn’t affect the results for the City Council, it did change the results for the School Committee. Instead of Eugenia Schraa Huh’s announced election to the School Committee, incumbent School Committee Member David Weinstein won with a 95 vote margin. This was very confusing, and prompted questions of a recount. And while Schraa Huh had enough signatures (thank you, everyone who signed!) to pursue a recount, she ultimately decided against it. 

As per Eugenia’s latest newsletter:

“On election night, the vendor included some (but, confusingly, not all) test ballot data in with its official count. The vendor identified and fixed this mistake by the next day at around 11am. (See below for explainer.)

Mistakes happen. What matters is how we respond.

What was particularly frustrating for me (and a few friends who volunteered to help with this) is that the Commission didn't put out a clear explainer for the public — even as the media covered the story intensely (see below). And they also didn't reach out to me to explain what had happened and reassure me that a recount wouldn't be needed.”

My own question — one that, in my opinion, hasn’t been adequately or fully answered — is that the Election Commission became aware of the error on Wednesday. Why didn’t they proactively inform the candidates and the public of the problem? Why did they wait until Friday?

Links

• The explainer that I wish had been published by the Election Commission.

• A ballot-counting mistake led to a wrong unofficial winner in Cambridge election

• With auxiliary ballots counted, David Weinstein set to return to Cambridge School Committee

Item 2: School Committee Slow Burn

I wrote up a live blow-by-blow recap of the School Committee’s Tuesday night meeting. 

The meeting covered the student update (scavenger hunt, Homecoming, cell phone policy update); a review of the high school’s MCAS data and chronic absenteeism problem; a discussion of the preliminary FY26-27 budget calendar; and provided a public example of why lawyers are important when there are mysterious $40,000 contracts (Paid? Unpaid? Who can say?) that have yet to be fully explained. 

This particular “mistakes were made” conversation arose as part of the consent agenda and came at the very tail end of a long school committee meeting. In my opinion, a very welcome rules change for the upcoming School Committee could be to deal with the consent agenda & contractual items as the first order of business, rather than the last. Observationally, by the time the School Committee gets to these items, it’s at the end of the meeting; everyone is typically tired and distracted. But this is an important part of the actual work of the School Committee — reviewing where the money goes and why. It shouldn’t be rushed.

Immediate next steps: a Governance subcommittee hearing has been scheduled for Friday, November 21 at 12 p.m. UPDATE (literally minutes after I published this): this meeting has been cancelled. So…yeah I got nothin except standby for the next School Committee meeting on Tuesday, December 2?

Other info that actually might affect kids: CRLS’s 20 year old block schedule may change over the next 3-4 years. Students, educators, and caregivers will be consulted prior to any conclusions.

Item 3: Cambridge’s Generational Financial Balloon Deflates

On November 10, to the “well yeah” of some [read: me] and to the skepticism of others, “Cambridge leaders said they are preparing to make city-wide budget cuts to brace for what they believe will be a multi-year economic slowdown in a ‘sobering’ round table meeting with the City Council and School Committee on Monday.” 

On November 17, this message was reinforced by news of possibly more than $8M in federal funding cuts to Cambridge’s housing support programs. 

Here’s what I know about current stakeholder priorities in preparation for the FY 26 - 27 budget process:

• City of Cambridge: Asking all departments for a 2% cut. For the CPSD budget, that translates to approximately $5M. 

• CPSD: For the FY 26 - 27 budget calendar and priorities, Murphy wants to accommodate the incoming School Committee members, as well as other community and working groups’ feedback. His own recommendations to the new School Committee will include educator effectiveness, improved family engagement, and building capacity regarding the use of space, especially in regards to the universal preschool program. 

• Current School Committee: As per Mayor Simmons, “Federal impacts are going to continue to press on the city and CPSD priorities – they will directly impact about 216 families.” She suggested that the city manager and the city CFO come to CPSD budget hearings, and that the city’s unexpended fund balance is what you leverage to borrow money at a reasonable rate. She added: “We need to level set with the public – let’s add another opportunity to bring the city & caretakers together.”

• CEA: All CEA contracts are set to expire between June - August 2026. The CEA’s recent actions have signaled that they’d like an increase in paraprofessional starting pay to about $50K – similar to Somerville’s recent contract. I’ve heard funding estimates for that goal ranging between about $520,000 to $1.9M.

Item 4: Two Guys Talking

On 11/12/2025, MBK’s Tony Clark interviewed Murphy about next steps and the general shape of things to come. It was a hefty, many-claused hour and a half long conversation (and yeah, I’m still working through the transcript). 

But my current top-level takeaways include:

• It’s pretty clear that Murphy definitely, absolutely, 100% wants to ensure smoother transportation routes so kids can get to school on time. To do so, he’d like to move CPSD from a three-tier start time to a two-tier start time.

• Continuing the work of the Building Equity Bridges project (much of which had been interrupted by the pandemic).

• Improving the impact of universal preschool.

• Aligning K-8 standards across the district.

• Ensuring that RSTA is far more integrated into the workflow and life of the high school

• According to Murphy, our current upper school model is of “questionable sustainability.” He said, “year in and year out, we are essentially keeping our fingers crossed and using all the scotch tape and glue at our disposal to keep our schools – this structural, class size, grade level size, aspects of our upper school model intact. And I don't know how long that can – we can continue to, like, engage in the practices that we have.”

• Regarding the high school extension program (HSEP), Murphy said that 1) the program needs to be named and 2) any district of our size has to take alt-ed seriously to meet students where they are. But alt-ed isn’t integrated into our upper school model, and it should be.

Item 5: Uh That’s A Lot to Cover in Under Two Hours, Friends

From the Buildings & Grounds announcement: 

There will be a Virtual Meeting of the School Climate Subcommittee on Thursday, November 20, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. (AMC note: aka tonight), for the purpose of reviewing start times of schools in the context of transportation logistics, reviewing lottery and transfer data as part of identifying trends of under chosen schools and sharing updates of Spring Street improvements. 

My specific to Spring Street improvements questions include: 

• Is the project on track to open fall 2026 or fall 2027? 

• Did the CPSD’s FY25 - 26 capital allocation of $19,986,000 include the Spring Street project? If yes, was that for the school renovations? If not, where might I find that line item within the city’s projected budget allocations? Are costs for the playground renovation specifically to be found in the city’s budget? 

• How will the city’s financial contraction affect the 158 Spring Street project in FY 26-27 budget planning?

• In addition to a construction manager, is there a project manager or liaison in place to ensure that all stakeholders in the city and the school district have consistent communication, expectations, and a shared sense of timeline?

• Will the HSEP program be using 158 Spring while the Longfellow building’s roof is replaced?

• I believe that for $9M, we may only be able to redo the HVAC system and window replacements. Is that correct? Do you have an estimate for how much abatement would cost? 

• What’s the gap between the current accessibility availability and actual accessibility? Do you have an estimate for how much accessibility improvements would cost and what impact accessibility improvements would have on the overall project timeline?

• Do you yet know what programming will move into the 158 Spring Street building? Do you know when those decisions will be made?

• When do you anticipate scheduling the next Buildings & Grounds subcommittee meeting?

Looking forward to updating folks with more questions and hopefully some answers soon, and thanks!

–amc