Richard Harding
2025 Candidate for Cambridge School Committee
Home address:
189 Windsor St.
Cambridge, MA 02139
Contact information:
Harding Campaign
PO Box 390051
Cambridge, MA 02139
E-mail: schools02139@yahoo.com
Website: www.voteharding.org
Send contributions to:
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Background
Richard Harding, a lifelong Cantibridgian, began his service as an intern at Joe Kennedy’s Citizen’s Energy, then served as Director of Constituent Services for Senator Steven Tolman and is the past Chair of the Ward 2 Democratic Committee. He has served on the board of the Young People’s Project, Just A Start, and of the Community Arts Center. Richard is a founder of the Port Action Group, a neighborhood group focused on violence prevention, and Vice-President of the Cambridge NAACP. Through the Port Action Group, Richard led the effort to secure the funding and instituted a streetworker in Area 4 to help connect formerly incarcerated individuals with services and resources.
Richard has organized and facilitated two community wide conversations around justice -- Civil Rights: Policing, Discretion and Race, and Not Guilty, a forum that examined police conduct in the Eurie Stamps and DJ Henry incidents. Richard is a proud recipient of the NAACP Education Excellence Award and the Cambridge Peace and Justice Award. Richard is a former member of the Cambridge Police Commissioner’s Community Advisory Board. Richard is a small business owner in Central Square and a respected community activist.
As a School Committee member, Richard’s bold, effective leadership included serving as Vice-Chair and co-chairing the Budget Committee and Contract Negotiations. Richard has co-chaired the Kids Council and brought his leadership to the Neighborhood Safety Task Force’s Employment Sub-Committee. As the Manager of Community Engagement and BIPOC Men’s Health at the Cambridge Public Health Department, Richard runs the Men of Color Health Initiative and is a program consultant to the job training program, CambridgeWorks. Richard attended the Kennedy Elementary school, the Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School and is a graduate of Fitchburg State University. His daughter is a graduate of the Cambridge Public Schools.
Priorities
- Academic Excellence for all Children
- Closing the Achievement Gap
- Ensuring excellent instruction in every classroom measured by student achievement
- A meaningful teacher evaluation system
- High quality professional development opportunities for educators
- Supporting special education students and ensuring full IEP compliance for all students
- Algebra accessible to all students by the 8th grade
- Parent involvement in all school-based decisions
- Support the Rindge School of Technical Arts to ensure that Cambridge has a strong vocational program
- A comprehensive evaluation of the Innovation Agenda (Middle School)
- Summer learning opportunities to address summer learning loss and support accelerated learners
- Increasing the participation of low SES and minority students in AP courses
- Creating a rigorous world language program across the district
- Supporting special education students and ensuring full IEP compliance for all students
- Evaluating student learning through multiple assessments including portfolios
- Supporting comprehensive STEAM opportunities that are the gateway to the 21st century economy
- Re-examining and potentially changing school committee rules to allow the school committee to be a more effective governing body and more user friendly to the public
Top Challenges Facing CPS today
- Closing the achievement gap
- Re-examining our school choice system
- Equity in participation in AP classes
- Supporting schools to be able to successfully support children with high needs
- Meaningful evaluation of classroom teachers
- Parent involvement
- Meeting the needs of our accelerated learners
- Evaluation of the Innovation Agenda
I will work to ensure the successful implementation of the innovation agenda for every school and every child. I will work to ensure that central administration hires the most highly qualified principals to run the middle schools. I believe we must make sure that there are adequate out-of-school time resources and programs that cater to the middle school age population. We must also provide resources for community building with new school populations and make sure that there are enough resources in place at schools to deal with social climate issues.
I will lead in the effort to evaluate the Innovation Agenda to make sure that it is succeeding every child, that there is academic rigor in every discipline, and that teachers are given all the support needed to be successful in the new middle schools. We must also ensure that our bilingual programs are supported and allowed to flourish.
All of this is possible if we make sure that the most highly qualified teachers are in front of our children. The evaluation of the innovation agenda must be thorough and comprehensive so that we can begin to resolve any issues that are identified. The evaluation must assess student achievement, curriculum, and rigor; school climate; and effectiveness of special education services. If the Innovation Agenda is going to succeed, we must be committed to an honest, transparent solution-based approach to its evaluation. The success of the Innovation Agenda is critical in closing achievement gap and restoring the confidence in the Cambridge Public Schools.
School Department Administration and Superintendent
I believe that a primary role of the school committee is to challenge the superintendent to be accountable to students and families by making sure they are evaluating programs, teachers, and the central administration staff. We have work with them to make sure that they rise to the challenge of the persistence academic achievement gap and offers a concrete plan to close the achievement gap. I believe we must make sure that the superintendent is negotiating with the teacher’s union with the best possible learning environment for children in mind and I will work collaboratively with the superintendent to develop goals that support a child centered learning environment. The superintendent must support teachers while challenging them to close the achievement and opportunity gaps in our schools. I will demand that the next superintendent of schools creates a strategic plan that includes a vision and short- and long-term goals for academic excellence in the Cambridge Public schools. This should be done collaboratively with the school committee.
Achievement Gaps, Meeting the Needs of All Students
Initial steps include: differentiated instruction so that students; making sure that all students are proficient in reading by the third grade; supporting teachers with meaningful professional development on social emotional issues to be able to serve our students classified as high needs and our special education students; and, continued support for the John Sapphire Initiative to improve ineffective instruction practices in our classrooms.
The Game Changer in Closing the Achievement Gap completion of Algebra in the middle school grades so that students have the chance to complete the advanced level of math in high school that is the gateway to the STEM and careers of the 21st century knowledge economy.
Meeting the Needs of Advanced Learners
Raise the bar and close the gaps. The worst thing for any student in our system is to be bored. Teachers must know the student’s talents, strengths, and weaknesses. Teachers must be able to meet the needs of these students by enhancing their preparation, being creative about instruction, mobilizing outside resources and finding challenging opportunities.
Parent Involvement
I believe that parents should be involved in all school-based decisions including the budget. Parents also must be invited to the table to be invested in their children’s education. I believe that the Cambridge Public Schools must do more to engage parents in the schools and with the school committee. To do the latter we must take meetings out to the community and do a better job at communicating information from the school system to the home. We need to make sure that this communication is not transactional – we do not just reach out when we need them. Parents must be able to communicate with their school communities and district leaders so that their voices can be heard.
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