Margareth Shepard Is Clear Choice for Framingham State Rep: Column

The following is an opinion column and does not necessarily reflect the views of Framingham Patch

FRAMINGHAM, MA — In the democratic primary on Sept. 6, voters will choose their candidate for the newly created 6th Middlesex District state House seat. The two strongest contenders on the ballot are: Margareth Shepard, an experienced town meeting member, two term Framingham City Councilor, and 30-year small business owner; and Priscila Sousa, six months into her second term on the Framingham School Committee and her first year as chair, and three years as a sales manager at Vivint Solar.

Both candidates share a Brazilian heritage, are immigrants, speak both Portuguese and Spanish, and have experience in local government, so align in a natural way with building out more effective representation of an increasingly diverse Framingham community. Margareth has broader municipal experience, which translates well to a shift to state representative. Priscila has just taken on a key educational leadership role in the school district and seems better positioned to continue in that role.

Each candidate has a somewhat comparable number of endorsements, although Margareth has specific endorsements from six City Councilors she served with, and the support of Jack Lewis, one of our currently serving state representatives. Further, Margareth has the endorsement of the Sierra Club, which is a critically important endorsement in these times.

Each candidate also has a set of priorities. Margareth’s may be found here.

Priscila has a priorities link on her website, but it has been broken for the last few months. You can find them at the bottom of her "Meet Priscila" page.

We will focus first on their environmental priorities, then on education.

Margareth captures the major environmental issues well with: “Secure vital funding to clean up local polluted sites, invest in green energy jobs, and accelerate our transition to renewable energy.”

Priscila’s message is: “Sponsor of first-in-state school climate change policy” and “clean up contaminated sites: Our district needs a representative who will not just speak out loudly about environmental justice, but will take action to clean up contamination."

As we are experiencing the local effects of climate change, with an unusually hot summer and the early stages of a drought in Massachusetts, and as we see all the other worldwide data on fires, droughts, flooding, crop failures, ecosystem destruction etc., it is clear that the transition to green energy must be accelerated. How can Priscila, as a candidate for state representative, not be front and center on that?

Further, the ‘sponsor’ claim bears examination.

The School Committee Climate Change, Environment and Sustainability policy is indeed the first one for any school district in the state. I have comprehensive experience of the effort to achieve that. I argued for creation of the School Committee subcommittee on Climate Change, Environment and Sustainability back in January 2020, and chaired the subcommittee for two years, with Adam Freudberg, Priscila Sousa and William LaBarge, as the three other members. The policy was developed, with input from School Committee members, the school district administration, teachers, students, and local community environmental activists. It was an immensely collaborative effort, so if you could call anyone a “sponsor," there would be dozens. Based on all that input, at the end of 2021, I drafted 90 percent of the first version of the policy, with the remainder done by Adam Freudberg. That first draft had 51 specific action areas. The subsequent subcommittee review, student forum input and administration input bumped that to 70. The policy ended up being approved by the School Committee on May 18.

There were, however, two major glitches which threatened to derail the policy effort. As the newly elected school committee reorganized at the start of 2022, under Priscila Sousa’s leadership, there was a concerted effort to dismantle the subcommittee on Climate Change, Environment and Sustainability, which was successfully blocked by lobbying by me, the superintendent and the environmental activist community. Then in April, as the finalized policy was being prepared by the policy subcommittee for transmission to the full school committee for an approval vote, there was an attempt to kill the policy. Margareth joined the lobbying effort to block that effort, and ensure the policy survived.

In my view, both bumps in the road could have been avoided with more engaged leadership from Priscila, especially as she had been part of the whole policy development effort from the start. But Margareth recognized the problem and helped when it mattered. The policy may be viewed here.

The final comment is that almost none of this policy content filtered up into Priscila’s campaign, which remains a mystery for me.

Moving on to education, there is a huge difference between the candidates on state Chapter 70 funding for our students. Chapter 70 funds in the state budget are specifically designed to boost local educational support for low income, special needs, and non-native English-speaking students.

Margareth has worked hard to ensure that Framingham’s share of Chapter 70 funding always reaches our students in full measure. In 2019, there was an attempt by the city to divert $700,000 of late breaking additional Chapter 70 aid away from the school district, but the City Council unanimously countered that effort, and added that money to the school district budget, where the state intended it to go. Margareth was an important contributor to that effort, and it was much appreciated.

In contrast, in the recently completed budget cycle, with $11.8 million in additional Chapter 70 state aid allocated to Framingham by the state, only $7.3 million reached our students. $4.5 million was siphoned off for city purposes, like fixing roads and replacing roofs. The irony is that the state specifically boosted Chapter 70 funds with the Student Opportunity Act, as Chapter 70 was found to be underfunded in past years. Further, the pandemic wrought havoc with students’ educational progress, especially those targeted by Chapter 70 funds, whose families have been pummeled by job loss, adverse health outcomes, poor internet access during remote education and rising inflation. If ever there was a year, for Chapter 70 funds to be fully invested in our students, it was this one. Even more compelling is the fact that in this past school year, 140 aide positions for special needs and English Language Learner students went unfilled due to hiring difficulties. Chapter 70 funds could have been deployed to remedy this situation in the upcoming school year, but they were not. This is especially troubling, as it builds on the fact that the School Committee subcommittee on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion did not meet at all in 2021 when Priscila was subcommittee chair, and early indications of this problem might have been detected by an operational subcommittee.

Under Sousa’s leadership, the newly elected school committee did not even have any substantive discussion of the matter, as the city lopped off $4.5 million in state funding for the schools. For the previous eight years 100 percent of state Chapter 70 funds have always gone to the school district. Margareth helped make that happen. But on Priscila’s watch, we saw the largest diversion in Framingham history of Chapter 70 funds away from their intended student targets.

Our next state representative must be able to argue effectively for Chapter 70 funding, but if they have been party to the diversion of 40 percent of the most recent Framingham Chapter 70 funding increase away from schools, they will have no credibility to advocate.

My best advice for voters would be to send Margareth to the state Legislature by checking her box on the Sept. 6 primary ballot. Margareth is the genuine real deal. She stands up when it matters, has dealt with very difficult life circumstances in an impressive way, follows through when it matters, has the endurance needed to stick with hard problems until they are solved, and will truly make us all proud as our next state representative, as she addresses the broad range of issues articulated in her campaign.

Geoffrey Epstein is the former District 6 Framingham School Committee member and former Chair of both its Climate Change, Environment & Sustainability and Finance & Operations Subcommittees.