GREENFIELD — Holding a shared vision for the school district’s future, School Committee candidates Melodie Goodwin, David Moscaritolo and Michael Terounzo have announced they will run as a slate in the Nov. 4 biennial city election.
With a focus on the goals of increasing transparency and investing the budget in teachers and instructional assistants, the new slate comprises half of the six remaining candidates and follows the previous creation of a slate by the other three candidates on the ballot — Elizabeth DeNeeve, Jeffrey Diteman and Adrienne Craig-Williams.
“We feel like we are kind of aligned with what our thoughts and beliefs are with respect to the school system and the School Committee,” Moscaritolo said. “It makes sense that if the opponents are running as a slate, we feel we should do the same thing because we are like-minded in what we believe in.”
According to Moscaritolo, the new slate members are primarily concerned with strengthening “collaboration, communication and transparency” among school leadership. He said funding K-5 elementary schools remains a priority for the candidates and clarified that — contrary to rumors — the slate is not calling for the return of the roughly $5.8 million leftover in the Special Education, Transportation Revolving, School Choice Receiving and Circuit Breaker accounts to the city.
“We’re not looking to give money back to the city that the schools have. We’re looking to use that money to actually fund some of these K through 5 programs,” he said. “Right now Greenfield ranks pretty low with reading and writing skills, as far as ranks within Massachusetts. … We’re not concentrating on it like we should, so we feel like it’s really a simple fix — we can take some of this money and we could apply it to smaller class sizes, we could support STEM programs and we can fund additional support we need teaching assistance in.”
Moscaritolo, Goodwin and Terounzo received 485, 540 and 456 votes, respectively, in the Sept. 9 preliminary elections, coming in behind DeNeeve, Diteman and Craig-Williams, who received 777, 756 and 696 votes, respectively.
Since this year’s preliminary election saw a voter turnout of just below 10%, Terounzo said he believes this gap can close before the Nov. 4 race.
“This is, traditionally, the year where the fewest amount of voters come out for the general election anyway. … This [ballot] is going to have a ballot question, but typically, because there’s no state, federal or mayoral races, this cycle is always the lowest voter turnout,” Terounzo said. “Preliminaries always have a terrible voter turnout; nobody cares about them, some people don’t think they’re worth their time. I don’t think that the results of the preliminary are reflective of the community.”
Terounzo added that while he typically does not believe in slates, as he does not believe candidates should suggest to the public which other candidates deserve their votes, he joined the cooperative campaign as a “counter response” to the other slate. He said transparency, especially when it comes to the Greenfield School Department’s budgeting and spending practices, was one of his primary concerns.
“A lot of people don’t know what’s going on, or how a lot of this stuff works, and I’m just really concerned about the funding that we have being spent appropriately and not wastefully — especially that we’re getting the children what they need in the schools, and that that includes not only their programming, but making sure [instructional assistants] are funded,” he said. “The three of us have that in mind — making it very clear where the money’s going before it gets published as a budget, asking the questions at a more appropriate time, making sure that you know the finances are being spent appropriately and responsibly.”
Goodwin echoed Terounzo’s remarks, noting that with families leaving Greenfield schools by choicing out, the School Committee must listen to parents to best meet students’ needs. She added that funding for teachers and instructional assistants’ salaries should take precedence over administrative positions.
Explaining that the School Department used to partner with community organizations such as Franklin County’s YMCA, Goodwin said she hopes the slated candidates can work to enhance community relations.
“Our elementary schools really didn’t bounce back after the pandemic. There’s a lot of things missing that were there during the pandemic — we had a lot of community partners [and] we want to see that rebuilt,” Goodwin added. “We used to be have a great partnership with the Y, and our kids used to take swimming lessons with the Y, and we lost that, and so we’re trying to bring back the programs we had.”
Goodwin added that the members of the slate are dedicated to responsible spending and student success, and do not intend to pursue any political endorsements.
“We want to stay neutral, because we really just want it to be about wanting what’s best for children, not a political party. We’re hoping that every side of a political party can hear us say, ‘We want our elementary students to have small class sizes,'” Goodwin said. “We want the arts back. We want everybody in Greenfield to be paid a competitive wage, and as taxpayers, I think everybody wants to know what we’re paying for. That’s the theme that kind of rides over everything in Greenfield — our taxes are high, but we really don’t know what we’re paying for.”
