School Committee Candidate Eugenia Schraa Huh ’04 Says Incumbents Have Focused on Optics, Not Outcomes

Cambridge School Committee candidate Eugenia B. Schraa Huh ’04 likes to say that her name “rhymes with algebra” — an issue that’s central to her campaign.

When Schraa Huh first unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the School Committee in 2023, Cambridge Public Schools was in the throes of a debate over how to bring back Algebra 1 instruction in middle schools.

After a long tug-of-war with the state, CPS began offering Algebra 1 to all eighth graders in 2013, then formalized “grade level” and “accelerated” math tracks for middle school students in 2015. But the tracks were discontinued in 2017 because Black and Latino students remained primarily in grade-level math classes, while white and Asian students were overrepresented in accelerated math.

Six years later, following backlash from parents, CPS approved plans to offer Algebra 1 to middle school students once again. The district decided to try solving equity concerns by moving in the opposite direction: expecting all eighth grade students to take Algebra 1.

The transition involved accelerating middle school math classes to prepare students to learn algebra. At the time, Schraa Huh, a former Crimson News editor, said that the planned rollout — which was intended to take three years — was moving too slowly.

After a yearlong delay, the district now plans to require Algebra 1 for all eighth grade students starting next year. But Schraa Huh worries that CPS hasn’t done enough to make sure all students are actually ready.

“At least half of that class is not going to be able to keep up because they’re just not there yet,” she said. “And so they’re going to be lost, they're going to be demoralized.”

“It’s the opposite of equity,” she added.

Schraa Huh said she believes that students should have the opportunity to take Algebra 1 in eighth grade, but that they should not be required to take the course if they still need to learn more basic math. If other students are ready for more advanced classes, Schraa Huh thinks they should be able to enroll in those instead.

Schraa Huh said she thinks the current plan reflects a decision by the School Committee to “allow optics to win out over student learning.”

“I think it’s really important that the School Committee stay more focused on outcomes and try to get less focused on jargony, buzzwordy process ideas,” she said. “I really want us to be focused on what’s going to happen for a student after they leave Cambridge Public Schools.”

She sees her stance as aligning with two incumbents, the current School Committee members Elizabeth C.P. Hudson and Richard Harding Jr., who have both been outspoken and sometimes critical of the district’s decisions.

“I think both of them have a real focus on student outcomes, rather than kind of bullshitty programs and making sure we use the word equity in the right ways,” Schraa Huh said.

Schraa Huh, a former Bronx public high school teacher, cited her classroom experience and advocacy work as evidence that she will accomplish things on the School Committee.

“I do have a track record of actually getting things done,” she said.

She advocated to increase afterschool seats for CPS and increase pay for afterschool staff in 2023, collecting a list of hundreds of parents and organizing them to write to the city in favor of the expansion.

“Do I think the city might have expanded without our work? Maybe,” she said. “But I don't think it would have been as big. I don’t think it would have been at the time it was done.”

Schraa Huh has two children in elementary school at CPS, and she recently served as director of constituent services for Cambridge Mayor E. Denise Simmons’ office. She said that she had worked with several families with young children that were uprooted by evictions and living without a permanent address.

“I’ve seen that stress, the unrelenting stress that they’re going through, and that’s one of the outcomes that happens if you’re not armed with a great education,” Schraa Huh said. “Not to say that education is everything that’s going on there, but a great education sets you up for stability in the world that we live in.”

Schraa Huh has also been a critic of the search for a new CPS superintendent. Simmering public controversy over the search process boiled over in August when finalists were announced. The Cambridge Education Association — the union representing teachers, administrators, and other CPS staff — called for a restart of the search, and Schraa Huh circulated a statement from the CEA criticizing the process as delayed and opaque.

“There is nothing more important for the School Committee than to hire a great superintendent, and yet, they have bungled this search so shockingly that it’s actually hard to talk about,” Schraa Huh said. “The process was done with so little attention and so little thought that it has resulted in all these embarrassments.”

Schraa Huh has not joined calls to restart the search, writing in an August edition of her newsletter that she worried a restart would drive off interim superintendent David G. Murphy, who is currently a finalist for the permanent role.

“Many critical things in life don’t allow for do-overs. This seems like one of them,” she wrote in a September newsletter. “I believe the lesser of two evils is to move forward at this point.”

When asked whether she still believes the search should continue, Schraa Huh referred to the newsletter.

She was not endorsed by the CEA, which released endorsements last week after hosting a forum for candidates. The CEA threw its weight behind a slate of six challengers — not including Schraa Huh — and no incumbents.

Schraa Huh was one of several candidates who broke with the CEA’s priorities in answering a pair of yes-or-no questions at the forum.

She said she did not have enough information to comment on whether the district should guarantee a minimum starting salary of $50,000 for paraprofessionals, and she declined to commit to not closing any more schools.

In an interview, Schraa Huh criticized the union for posing the questions at the forum.

“This way of doing it was just plainly to manipulate the candidates into saying yes and committing themselves to a position,” Schraa Huh said. “And then later on, they plan to use this with whoever is elected to be like, ‘Well, you said it clearly there.’”

Schraa Huh said she was motivated to campaign again after School Committee member Rachel B. Weinstein decided to not run for reelection earlier this year.

“It is really difficult, but I feel really good to be in this fight,” Schraa Huh said. “We’ve just got to find a way to make our schools live up to the kids that we've got and the resources we have in this community.”

—Staff writer Ann E. Gombiner can be reached at annie.gombiner@thecrimson.com.