Vanden Akker Newest Member of School Committee

Sherri Vanden Akker sat in the corner of the Superintendent's Conference Room Monday, listening in on the School Committee meeting as the gloomy picture of town finances was described. There was little talk of educating children. Rather the focus was on cost centers, accomodated costs, a drop in grant funding of $261,00, and a $450,000 hole before the budget process even starts.

Then she said, count me in.

By a unanimous vote, Vanden Akker was approved as the newest member of the Reading School Committee, replacing Gary Nihan who stepped down because of health issues. Her passion may be education, but the job ahead is about making the numbers work.

"I have two kids in the schools. So I do hope the override will pass," said Vanden Akker, 52, who attended Northbridge High School before getting her undergraduate degree in English Literature at Mount Holyoke. "I feel it's important that we have the override vote and that it passes but I know that it might not. Everybody knows that it might not. So I would like to help responsibly shape the outcome if it doesn't pass. I'd like to try to educate the community about the fact that were in a brand new era now. We're in the digital era. It's as profound a shift as when we entered the industrial era. I think we sometimes miss that."

The numbers she'll hear can be mind-numbing and near-impossible to fully understand.

"It can be Dickensian in its complexity," said Vanden Akker, showing off her masters and Ph.D. in English Literature from UMass-Amherst.

She also knows what's ahead in the coming months.

"I know there will be a lot of meetings, I know that we're going to see a budget based on balanced numbers that will be a very painful thing for me to see as an educator. And I know there's a chance we might have to live with that budget but I hope we don't."

Photo by Bob Holmes