Fred Fantini
2021 Candidate for Cambridge School Committee

Home address:
4 Canal Park
Cambridge MA 02141

Contact information:
Tel: 617-577-1755
e-mail: fredfan1@aol.com

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Background

• Master's Degree in Management with a specialized graduate certificate in Diversity from Cambridge College in May 1999.
• Bachelor's Degree in Accounting and Finance from Bentley College.
• Parent Advocacy Training from the Federation for Children with Special Needs
• Brings thirty-five years’ experience as a municipal finance professional as Deputy Treasurer for the Town of Arlington.
• Unique record of linking fiscal priorities, educational goals, and standards and measures of accountability in a strategic planning format.
• Experienced on both sides of the collective bargaining table representing management on the Cambridge School Committee and workers with labor as President of SEIU/NAGE local 113.
• Former Treasurer SEIU 888
• Served for thirty-eight years as a member of the Cambridge School Committee-experience matters.
• Sponsor Cambridge Little League-Major League Braves and All-Star team
• Sponsor Cambridge Girls Softball.
• Attends educational courses and conferences on a regular basis
• Recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the MA Association of School Committees (Nominated by Fellow School Committee Members in 2012) and was cited for “advocacy and courage during times of great change over 30 years of public service.”
• Elected three terms by colleagues to be its Vice-Chair
• Serves as a full time School Committee member.

Anticipated Endorsements:
Greater Boston Labor Council, AFL-CIO
National Association of Governmental Employees (NAGE)
SEIU-Local 888-Working Together
Carpenters Local 40-Cambridge
General Construction Local 151-Cambridge
Plumbers and Gas Fitters Local 12-Boston
Bridge and Structural Iron Workers Union Local 7
MA and No. New England Laborers’ District Council
Cambridge Firefighters union

Top Priorities

• Review the recommendations of a comprehensive study of our Rindge School of Technical Arts (RSTA) to implement meaningful changes to our vocational education program that will provide more opportunities to our students to pursue high quality vocational programs that are high in demand and provide family wages.
• Work with our Interim Superintendent-Victoria Greer to review and implement an updated District Strategic Plan that will outline strategic goals and measurable outcomes as we move our district forward. Superintendent Greer is in the process of reviewing data, doing an extensive listening tour with multiple groups, seeking input from community members to help inform a district plan.
• Continue to keep our staff and students safe, support our students and families to get thru the trauma that this pandemic has brought on to so many. Use the additional federal funds in ways that support these goals.

Initiatives that Fred has worked on during the last two years:
Created a program working with Lesley University that provides our paraprofessionals who already have a bachelor’s degree and opportunity to get a master’s degree in education at no cost. Twenty paraprofessionals are going thru this 24-month cohort program. Once finished they will be given priority status to become teachers in our system. This program will be a pipeline to continue to diversify of workforce and provide life changing opportunities for our paraprofessional staff.

Created a program to allow paraprofessionals an opportunity to get their bachelor’s degree at no cost. A non-profit organization is working with us to provide this opportunity. We hope to have five paraprofessional ready to start this program. So, if you get hired as a paraprofessional in Cambridge our goal is to create a pipeline that would allow you to get a bachelor’s degree, then a master’s degree at no cost and become a teacher in our system. A remarkable recruitment tool.

Also, working with Lesley University and CPS we have applied to the Department of Higher Education to be designed an Early College school allowing our students to earn college credits while in high school. Students who have traditionally not been able to attend college-children of color, low-income families will be prioritized in this program. Support systems will be put in place to ensure success.

Top Challenges Facing CPS today

Continue to support students, staff, and families as we continue to overcome the effects of this pandemic.
We are pleased that our students are back in school and our goals are to ensure that we keep our students, staff and families safe, provide strong supports for all the social and emotions issues that we are experiencing and meet the challenge to make up for lost learning and ensure are children grow academically as well.

Closing the Achievement Gap
We recognize that closing the achievement gap has been a persistent problem for school systems in this county and in Massachusetts and this became more evident during this pandemic, but we must do better for our most vulnerable population-making small gains each year is no longer good enough. We are ranked by the Department of Education as a school making substantial progress in many areas, but the scale of improvement is not good enough-accelerated programs need to be developed and supported.

The goal of our “Innovation Agenda” that created a K-5 structure and a middle school structure it was to provide more opportunities for our students and ensure that when our children left the K-5 system they were ready to do middle school work and when they left the middle school structure, they would be ready to do high school work. It’s time to realize those goals.

School Department Administration and Superintendent
Former Superintendent Salim over his six years positioned the school system in a good place by putting strong structures in place, centering many of his key initiatives based upon his strong belief in equity and battling racism, hiring new and diverse staff, and supporting those initiatives with significant financial resources to thrive. A job well done.

Our interim Superintendent-Dr. Greer, who also has special skills is now positioned to take our school system to a place commensurate with the financial resources we spend. Where we go will become part of a new District Plan that will identify our goals and the pathway to get us there. Strong and timely communication between the Superintendent and the school committee has already started and is encouraging. Stakeholders demand that we all work together to improve the lives of all our students. I’m optimistic about the future of our school system.

School Department Budget and Capital needs
Strong relationships between the City Manager and City Council have allowed us to increase our general budgetary needs over the last several years to meet our growing needs. In the last three years we have added close to 150 positions. Strategic investments in instructional English and Math coaches, providing social workers in every school, increase the hours of our valued parent liaisons and so much more.

And in addition, the city has supported our capital needs which has resulted in over a half billion dollars over a ten-year period. We have a renovated high school, War Memorial athletic complex, built a state-of-the-art main branch of the public library, erected a new King and King Open Schools and are in planning process for a new Tobin school. We are providing our employees with top notch facilities in which to work and our students with the best climate to learn and safe as well.

Continued analysis of our buildings is being done by the City staff and new capital plans will fund projects that will need to be completed in some of our older buildings.

Controlled Choice, Student Assignment Policies
Our voluntary Controlled Choice plan stands out as a national model on how to integrate schools. The goal of making our schools balanced by Socio Economic Status is important to me as I believe strongly that the results are a stronger community and school system. School Choice works best when all schools are schools of excellence, and the choice part is real. In this manner, all parents even though they may not get their first choice would remain satisfied. It’s important that all schools be in a continuous improvement mode, always striving for excellence.

As folks are aware, we have many choices in our system from Montessori school, three immersion schools, two extended day schools, schools that believe in project-based learning, schools that many chose because they live in the neighborhood, and schools that have a strong music program. It is our obligation to do a review of our elementary school program to see where improvement/changes need to be made, especially where schools have not shown to close the achievement gap.

I’ve been around since the start of our voluntary controlled choice plan and know the importance of children of all races and economic backgrounds learning and growing together. The schools are the center of a community and having our schools be diverse makes for a much stronger community.

Curriculum and programs
Our relatively new experienced Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction will oversee the three areas noted below. Her focus on strategic planning and implementation for curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development JK-12 will be critical to moving our system forward.

Elementary School
As one can see by visiting our schools, administrators, teachers, and specialists are working hard to create a special place for our children. Our elementary schools have many resources that most schools in Massachusetts do not. Parent Liaisons, full time Librarians, school based discretionary funds, assistant principals, innovative programs like Kodaly Music, a community engagement team, significant professional development and much more. And it goes without saying that a strong active parent community adds a lot of value to our schools.

Our elementary schools now are aligning their school improvement plans with that of the district to create alignment.

Our K-5 schools are much smaller, and strong leaders can manager them well. K-5 schools should be sending children to middle school ready to learn.

Middle School Grades
Ongoing support for the Upper Schools is essential to building a successful program in grades 6 through 8. It’s important we refine the Upper School program to meet the Innovation Agenda goal of a providing a superior academic and social experience for all students that prepares them for success in high school and post-secondary education. We need to continue to provide support and make investments in areas that will enhance the success in our middle schools. Students enjoy attending schools with larger cohorts of students instead of the isolation that many experienced prior and the school system can provide enhanced offering in the visual and performing arts and science areas. The goal of having these middle schools racially balanced is also important to me. My goal is that every child leaves middle school ready to succeed at CRLS.

High School Grades
Our high school should be the showcase of our system; all our students from our 12 elementary schools, and 5 middle schools end up there. It is geographically located in the center of the city in a setting that looks like a college campus. It’s a place where every student should be able to find a pathway that meets their needs. We continue to send students to the nation’s best colleges and universities. We have over 30 varsity sports that no fee is charged to participate. We also have a significant number of clubs that students can join. We offer a large array of advanced placement courses, internship opportunities, senior projects. We contract with many outside partners that support of children both academically and emotionally and so much more.

But the high school has seen some challenges it needs to overcome and certainly has the capacity to do so. Its rankings among other public high schools have been dropping, its college persistence rate is not where it should be and its management of the system to ensure it’s a safe place for our students needs to be tightened up.

We also need to make sure that the programs and human talent we have on board is experienced by every student – this being a true commitment to equity.

Language Immersion Programs
As someone who was on the committee 30 years when we started the Amigos program and was active in supporting the Ola and Mandarin Chinese immersion programs, I take great pride in having the vision to recognize the importance of immersion programs long before they became popular.

We all know the educational research on how Immersion programs benefit all children, and they are an important part in our School Choice system. We must continue to support our immersion programs, help schools promote the values of bilingual education, and in thoughtful ways talk about opportunities for more low-income children to attend them.

It’s important to note that I believe we have many excellent schools all throughout our city from Immersion Programs to our Montessori program, our extended day schools, our schools that many consider neighborhood schools, and schools that believe in project-based learning. As I’ve mentioned above the success of our Controlled Choice System is based strongly on the notion that all schools must be excellent choices for parents. Given we have a consistent curriculum at each school I believe we are getting there.

As I noted in the segment above, we must make sure that our best services and personnel as well as our best resources are shared throughout the city.

Extended day programs
Cambridge offers many choices in our public schools two of which are extended day programs at the Fletcher Maynard Academy and the King School. Children go to school for 8 hours a day except Wednesday. Many parents favor a longer school day for their children. With more time, schools can be creative in scheduling and course offerings. For example, additional courses can be offered (Spanish at Fletcher Maynard), extended classes in all subjects including academics and Visual and Performing arts, more time for teachers to collaborate, etc.

Early Childhood Education
I think we all agree on the importance of early childhood education and the importance of providing high quality programs that are affordable. The city and school department are working jointly thru its original task force on Early Childhood Education now referred to as “Birth to Grade 3 Partnerships” to meet these goals. The new Tobin School will support a wing dedicated to young learners.

Meeting the Needs of Advanced Learners
The responsibilities to provide advanced learners opportunities to grow has been assigned to the Director of Special Education. Providing the duties to an ongoing department is better strategically than creating a separate stand-alone department. Our recent hiring of a new interim director of special education should provide a renewed opportunity to provide supports for advanced learners.

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