Newton School Committee Selects New Chair, Vice Chair

NEWTON, MA — The Newton School Committee held a caucus Monday night to decide who will become the next Chair and Vice Chair in January 2022, ultimately deciding on Tamika Olszewski as the new Chair and Kathy Shields as the Vice Chair.

The evening began with two nominations for Chair. Emily Prenner from Ward 5 nominated herself and Olszewski from Ward was nominated by Chris Brezski. During her speech, Olszewski expressed her respect and admiration for Prenner.

"We joined the school committee at the same time, we campaigned together, and she knows she has my deep respect," said Olszewski.

Prenner said she ran for Chair with the goal of facilitate more communication among members and make sure everyone has a voice when debating sensitive issues.

"As a school committee, I feel like we are at an inflection point right now," she said. "We have four new school committee members, we are still dealing with the global pandemic and a lot of fallout from last year. We are poised to move things forward in a positive way, and I'd like to be part of that. "

Although she did not actively seek the Chair position, Olszewski said she is grateful for the opportunity and wants to focus on welcoming open and honest questions and closing the achievement gap while continuing to improve Newton's overall academic excellence.

"It's become more and more apparent to me that in order to change the direction of the school committee and help build a strong foundation for the Newton Public Schools, that I needed to be in a position of leadership," she said. "It's clear that I couldn't effectively advocate for the change without being willing to roll up my sleeves, do the hard work, and be an agent of the change that I see."

There were also two nominations for Vice Chair, with Paul Levy nominating Anping Shen in Ward 3 and Kathy Shields in Ward 7 nominating herself for second in command.

"Over my time on the school committee I have demonstrated again and again my ability to collaborate with people of many differing views, to take into account information from many different sources, and to combine that information together in those points of view into effective solutions towards our problems," she said.

Shen's speech ultimately focused on his desire to return academic excellence to Newton Public Schools as the committee welcomes its newest members.

"We can hear the message loud and clear, we need some changes, and I would like to be part of this change," he said.

Monday night's caucus can be viewed in full here.