AMHERST — Six Amherst residents, including a former School Committee member and a recent candidate for state representative, are seeking to fill a vacancy on the local school panel.
The letters of interest to replace Laura Kent, who resigned from the committee last month after being elected in March, were submitted this week to the Select Board office.
Kent’s successor will be chosen at a joint meeting of the Select Board and remaining members of the School Committee at 5 p.m. Thursday in Town Room at Town Hall. The candidate who receives a majority of the nine votes will serve until the town election next March.
The six candidates are Kathleen Bailer, of Sand Hill Road, the principal of the John Ashley and Cowing Schools in West Springfield; Christopher J. Diamond, of Orchard Street, a partner in a local business focused on commodity logistics; Eric Nakajima, of West Street, the former director of the Massachusetts Broadband Institute and runner-up in the Democratic primary for 3rd Hampshire District state representative; Vincent O’Connor, of Summer Street, a community organizer and longtime Town Meeting member who ran unsuccessfully for School Committee last spring; Jennifer S. Page, of Potwine Lane, manager of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Community Campaign for the External Relations and Community Events office; and Irv Rhodes of Pondview Drive, a former School Committee member and retired teacher and consultant.
The applications come at a time that the Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committee has been described by its own members as dysfunctional and in disarray. Whoever is selected to the Amherst school board will automatically become part of the nine-member regional committee, which also includes two Pelham representatives and one each from Shutesbury and Leverett.
In letters of interest submitted by five of the six candidates, each stressed the need to improve education for all learners and bridge divides.
Only O’Connor did not submit a letter explaining his interest. O’Connor has been a critic of decisions made by the committee and former Superintendent Maria Geryk, and said last spring that if elected he would stand up to school and town leaders.
Bailer described herself as being passionate about education and that she wishes “to serve on the Amherst School Committee to help support the district in reaching its educational goals for all of the children in our town.”
“I feel I could help facilitate communication and compromise within the committee,” Diamond wrote.
Nakajima wrote that he has “immersed myself in educational policy issues from the fiscal challenges of our schools to the negative effect of high-stakes testing” and wants to add his experience to the “committed and talented members” on the committee.
Page wrote that “I think I can help bring people together to listen to each other, not just to hear each other’s words, but to take in each other’s messages.”
“I believe that a school committee member must not only serve the purposes of the School Committee, but also must be an advocate and ambassador of the schools to the Amherst community,” Rhodes wrote.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
