School Committee Candidate Santos Wants to ‘Meet People Where They Are’

Luisa de Paula Santos, a special education paraprofessional, wants to improve equity and increase caregiver participation in Cambridge School Committee.

Santos, who is running for school committee, said her experience dealing with the issues of Cambridge Public Schools as a Cambridge Education Association member sets her apart from the other eighteen candidates still in the race for six open seats on the School Committee.

“I went to a lot of school committee meetings and gave a lot of public comments, and I sat and I also encountered a lot of parents there who are very concerned and getting a lot of public comments,” Santos said.

While caregivers and teachers are able to voice their concerns at school committee meetings, Santos said the current committee doesn’t take their opinions seriously. As an example, she cited the controversial decision to shut down the Kennedy Longfellow School.

“Parents and educators at the K-Lo had been saying for a very long time what the issues were,” Santos said. “They were living it day in and day out, but those went unaddressed for so long that then the only choice, so called, was to shut down the school.”

“I feel like that really showed me that under-privileged families were not being heard,” Santos added.

To expand community participation and gather more perspectives, Santos plans to implement “targeted outreach to families that are multilingual and unhoused.”

“Instead of expecting people to come to school committee meetings, which is a very intimidating space, really going out to people, meeting people where they are,” Santos said.

As a part of the Cambridge Solidarity Squad, a group of educators, caregivers, and community members that advocate at school committee meetings, Santos helped to create a “People's Budget,” which asked Cambridge residents to imagine their ideal school budget.

She said she hopes to bring this sort of participatory budgeting to the school committee.

“We can reserve a portion of the budget and then really put it out to people to actively vote on, and that’s one such way that we can get people’s input,” Santos said.

Santos also wants to tackle inequality in the district, and said that examining the current state of the school choice system should be a priority.

The school choice system, officially called the Controlled Choice Policy, allows families to enroll students in CPS schools outside of their neighborhoods. The placement decision considers both the preference of the family and district interests such as creating socioeconomically and racially balanced schools.

“While it is a well intentioned policy, it has started to replicate and reproduce a lot of inequities in our school system,” Santos said.

“I think every school should be funded and have the resources they need to be a school of choice,” Santos added.

Santos is also an advocate for reconsidering student discipline policies. She wants the district to implement a restorative justice approach instead of relying on out-of-school suspensions, and evaluating administrators on their ability to implement these changes.

“There needs to be some sort of metrics for evaluating administrators that include, were they able to diminish the number of out-of-school suspensions for students of color? Were they able to diversify the student body?” she said. “Not just including students in the school, but really making sure that there is belonging for every student at the school.”

In regards to developing new curricula, Santos called for allowing more educator input in decisions and higher teacher-to-student ratios to increase individualized attention for students.

“I do think that Cambridge has the resources to do that,” she said. “It’s just a matter of figuring out and possibly thinking creatively about how to do that.”

Santos plans to seek the help of the City Council to aid in implementing these changes by building relationships with city council members.

“Right now, the school committee keeps itself separate from the city council and doesn’t really work together — I think that that’s a potentially very big missed opportunity,” Santos said.

Santos stated a commitment to transparency and action.

“I’ll make sure that things aren’t swept under the rug,” Santos said. “I definitely will, even if it’s uncomfortable and people don’t want to talk about things.

“I am willing to push past that discomfort in order to do what’s best for our kids,” Santos added.

School Committee elections will be held on Nov. 4.

—Staff writer Christiana P. Foufas can be reached at christiana.foufas@thecrimson.com.