HOLYOKE — Two city residents are set to compete over who will represent Ward 4 on the School Committee in Tuesday’s election. Irene Feliciano-Sims, an incumbent who has held her seat on the committee since 2014, faces challenger Faizul J. Sibdhanny Jr.
Ward 4 covers parts of the Churchill and downtown neighborhoods, as well as smaller sections of the Oakdale and Highlands neighborhoods.
Feliciano-Sims, 39, is an associate director at Viability, Inc., an organization based in Northampton that aims to help people with disabilities gain employment through community and business partnerships. Sims has spent most of her life in Holyoke and has two grown children who attend Holyoke Community College.
As an incumbent, Feliciano-Sims said she is proud of the work she has done connecting with other towns in the state through the Massachusetts Association of School Committees as well as working with state lawmakers in learning how to advocate for the school system.
Feliciano-Sims supports the Proposition 2½ debt-exclusion override ballot question that asks voters whether to help fund the construction of two new middle schools in the city. The project will help fix dilapidated schools and help the students inside, she said, citing high child asthma rates in Holyoke that she said are exacerbated by outdated buildings.
New schools could also provide students with specialized classes and classrooms which could lead to more flexible learning possibilities, she said.
“It’s an opportunity,” Feliciano-Sims said of the proposed project. “Every city is going through this 21st-century thinking, and we should be, too.”
Feliciano-Sims said she envisions a city where constituents and elected officials can easily interact with one another, noting that she is interested in looking into creating a city resource center for easy access to program resources.
Such a center, Feliciano-Sims said, could help introduce more people to initiatives like Student Pathways, which gives individualized programming to students in the school system to help guide career and college plans. Having been a teen mother, Feliciano-Sims said this program helped her put her own life back on track.
“Not everyone has the same lifestyle,” she said. “Our kids are from all walks of life.”
Feliciano-Sims said she wants voters to choose her because of her ability to reach across the aisle and find solutions from constructive and critical conversations.
“I know how tough and bureaucratic things can be, and I don’t have a problem saying things that people are uncomfortable with,” she said. “I want to have those uncomfortable conversations.”
Sibdhanny, 21, is a part-time driver for Uber and Lyft who is also currently attending Holyoke Community College where he is working toward his associate’s degree in business. He has lived in the city his entire life and attended Holyoke public schools.
During his time at Holyoke High School, Sibdhanny said he was the elected student representative on the School Committee. Sibdhanny said some of the most important issues facing the city’s school system are if students are meeting state goals, whether that be passing state exams or being at specified reading levels for a student’s grade.
Sibdhanny said he wants to meet with building administrators, principals and faculty to learn what programs are currently in place to get students to read more, noting that when he was younger, his school had rewards for how many books a student would read.
“I would like to see more rewarding students and getting them to be motivated,” Sibdhanny said.
Longer-term goals for Sibdhanny include getting the city’s schools out of state receivership, along with renovating existing schools and building entirely new ones. Sibdhanny said he supports the ballot measure asking for a debt-exclusion override for the construction of two new middle schools.
“Our students deserve the opportunity to have nice middle schools and they deserve new buildings,” he said.
On election day, Sibdhanny said he hopes voters will choose him to represent Ward 4 on the School Committee since he has worked on the board in the past and is a former student of the city’s schools.
“I’m younger, I’m fresh out of school and I know what issues faculty and students are facing from my own experience,” Sibdhanny said.
Michael Connors can be reached at mconnors@gazettenet.com.