School Board to City Council

E. Denise Simmons says she wants to “move along” in the world.

Simmons, a member of the Cambridge School Committee who is running for the City Council this fall, is careful not to say she’s trying to “move up,” because she has devoted the last decade to sitting on the school board. But she acknowledges a spot on the council would give her a higher-profile position with influence over more city-wide issues, such as housing and social services.

“I’ve seen myself as the School Committee member who had a citywide vision,” she says.

The step from School Committee to City Council is not unusual in Cambridge politics—two current councillors made the same move—and friends say Simmons has been thinking about seeking a council seat for at least four years. She seriously considered running two years ago but did not want to leave the School Committee in the middle of several major initiatives, including the contentious merger of two elementary schools that serve mainly black and Latino students in the city’s Area 4 neighborhood.

But this year, with the elementary school merger a done deal and with Councillor Kathleen L. Born leaving the council, Simmons says she “didn’t even hesitate” to run.

In a crowded field of candidates, Simmons stands out as a non-incumbent who has held elective office and has significant name recognition. Simmons, who turned 50 on Tuesday, lives and and works in Cambridge, running the Cambridgeport Insurance Agency she founded 20 years ago. If elected, she would be the council’s only black woman and its only member from Area 4.

The School Committee has already given Simmons a political education, her friends and supporters say. Several friends who have known Simmons since the 1970s say she has grown up significantly in public life, leaving behind early shyness and learning to be more tactful in her criticisms. And though she often talks about “visions” and “dreams,” supporters say she has come to accept the trade-offs of the political process.

“She sees the City Council as slow and steady, as moving things through with allies,” says Renea Gray, who has worked on Simmons’ last two School Committee campaigns. “You know you have to give to get. She understands the political game and that’s a plus.”

In fact, Simmons is forever talking about “policy.” On the school board, she started a subcommittee on policy that produced immense binders filled with past School Committee orders.

She also supported drawing up a list of major district-wide problems and then agreeing to tackle only a few major issues at a time, such as improving reading scores and discussing how students’ race and class affect their education.

“You prioritize,” Simmons says. “You develop a plan, and you work that plan.”

She says the same approach of focusing on one or two major issues per term would increase faith in the City Council. If Simmons has her way, the council would not attempt to tackle as many issues at once, but would devote its full attention to the issues it does consider.

Though she says this approach requires being patient and looking at the city as a whole, Simmons says coming from Area 4 means she would push for her neighborhood’s issues harder.

“For 50 years, Area 4 hasn’t had a representative,” she says. “I may be a little boisterous because it’s a neighborhood that has been neglected.”

On the School Committee, Simmons was known for raising what she called “issues of race and class.” But her bid for City Council is downplaying the fact that she is the only black female candidate, according to campaign manager Kimberly Johnson.

Her all-encompassing platform does feature diversity and “racial justice” prominently, but it also raises many perennial Cambridge issues, namely neighborhoods and affordable housing.

Like many other candidates, Simmons says rents should be more reasonable for mom-and-pop businesses.

She supports levying a charge on Harvard and other universities for students who live in private housing and allocating the proceeds for the city’s affordable housing fund. She also wants to make it easier for Cantabrigians to find out about city services.

Where supporters say Simmons can distinguish herself most clearly from other candidates is on a key issue in the election—education.

Her terms on the School Committee—where she promoted parental involvement and focused on racial and class-based achievement gaps—will give her an edge, they say.

“You see City Councillors talking about schools,” says School Committee member Nancy Walser, often a Simmons ally. “Schools are the burning issue.”

Cambridge spends nearly $17,000 per student in its school district—more money than any other district in the state—but most Cambridge students score poorly on the state-mandated MCAS tests, and as many as one-third of high school sophomores regularly fail parts of the MCAS, putting them in danger of not receiving their diplomas.

The education situation has so perplexed policy-makers in Cambridge that the City Council has increasingly concerned itself with school affairs.

Last year, several councillors threatened not to approve the school budget. And now other council candidates are suggesting that the city’s governing board should scrutizine the School Department budget more closely.

Past attempts at joint meetings between the council and the School Committee were tense affairs that led to hard feelings on both sides.

Walser and another of Simmons’s School Committee allies, Alice L. Turkel, say they expect Simmons to be a sympathetic ear on the council.

“For me on the School Committee to know there’s someone on the City Council who understands the issues [means] you can cut to the chase,” Walser says.

The two governing bodies should meet at least twice a year, Simmons says, even though the City Council cannot dictate the School Committee’s agenda.

“Yes, they should care,” she says of the City Council, “but they can’t mandate the School Committee to do anything.”

—Staff writer Andrew S. Holbrook can be reached at holbr@fas.harvard.edu.