New Danvers School Committee Member Picked Out Of 3 Finalists

DANVERS, MA - A corporate trainer for a pharmaceutical company and town resident for the past 10 years is the newest member of the Danvers School Committee after Joshua Kepnes was chosen out of a field of three finalists at Monday night's special Committee meeting.

Kepnes was picked unanimously in the third vote of the Committee after members were unable to reach a consensus on motions supporting chemical engineer Alexis Smith-Attuquayefio or Essex County Sheriff's Office superintendent Heidi Mora.

Kepnes will serve the final seven months of the term of Jeffrey Kay, who resigned from his position because he recently moved out of town. Kepnes will be eligible to run for re-election in May.

Each finalist answered questions for about 20 minutes separately Monday night before they were all brought back into the room for the vote.

"I am convinced any of you would serve very, very well on this Committee," School Committee member Gabriel Lopes said before the votes. "That was very impressive across the board. I think you all bring something unique to this. But, unfortunately, we can only vote for one person.

"This is incredibly hard."

The vote initially required a majority vote of the four remaining members of the Committee with Lopes making a motion prior to the vote that a unanimous vote be required to endorse a candidate. His first motion to bring a vote on Smith-Attuquayefio did not receive a second, while a vote for Mora received a 2-1-1 vote.

Kepnes then received the 4-0 vote.

Kepnes touted his work in analytics and training during his interview and said wanted to help serve in the position because he graduated from public school and "the last thing I want to do is pull my kids out and put them in private school."

"How can we change this brand of the Danvers school system right now?" he said. "We're kind of stuck a little bit in mediocrity as far as where we rank in the state. But also our school system, or the town, is making news for the wrong reasons right now."

He said the data from this past year's MCAS test was "eye-opening" — especially at the middle school level.

Kepnes said it is a critical time for that with the search for a new superintendent ongoing.

"I understand that's a big ship to turn," he noted of the MCAS results. "But where can we get some of the quick wins? Where can we see some improvement? I would look to see if we can have a great leader (in the new superintendent) who can take on that task and close those gaps.

"If I were presenting that data my superiors would ask: 'What's my plan to mitigate that? What's my plan to change that?'"

Lopes asked each of the candidates what level of input parents and families should have on the school curriculum. Kepnes' response: "I think we should listen to the community but lean on the experts."

Mora and Smith-Attuquayefio each said they would bring different priorities to the Committee.

Mora focused on both emotional and physical school safety and said as a Committee member she would ask what the district is doing to prevent some of the bias, hate and antisemitic incidents of recent years in town, how incidents are being investigated and then how they are being addressed.

"It was hurtful to know that was going on in our backyard," she said. "We're in a time of change and change is good."

Smith-Attuquayefio said she would bring a focus on advocating more STEM learning to the younger grades so Danvers students are best equipped to apply for the best positions in the future.

"The last few years have been challenging for us," she said. "But the world is still moving. And we need to make sure we're continuing to move forward to prepare our students for the future."

She also joined Mora in praising Danvers teachers, while noting there could be more diversity among the staff, and stressed that school plays a role in a child's life that often goes well beyond academic learning because "in some cases, the school may be the safest place a student is because they don't get to go home to a safe place."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)