 I'm Michael Morris, I'm the superintendent in Amherst, and thank you for watching the latest episode of Window into Arps. This is an unusual episode, a little different than our format in the past. With me today are outgoing last day, where this is, we're catching Eric Nakajima on his last day as a school committee member in Amherst, and Anastasia Adonis who recently departed the school committee, and I think worth noting played large roles including being chairs of the Amherst and regional school committees over the past few years. So we thought it was a great, I thought it was a great opportunity to hear from you all and for the community to hear from you more importantly, about what your experience has been like, to give you an opportunity to reflect on that time, and to share with the community what are some things looking forward to future committee members might benefit from hearing. So thank you both for making time to do this, and for this being your last official act of, as a school committee member, quasi-official, and for willing to come back a month later in Anastasia, I appreciate it. Thank you for the invitation. Thank you. So first, if you want to introduce yourselves, you can, and maybe talk about when you joined the school committee, and perhaps if you want to combine that with, you know, what's your motivation, when did you join, but also why did you join, it's a time consuming commitment, and what were your thoughts on that, Anastasia, do you mind starting us off? So again, thank you for the invitation, Mike. It's great to be here, and I'm Anastasia Ordonez, and I joined the school committee. I was, I campaigned actually in late winter, early spring of 2016, and was elected to the position through a town-wide vote in March of 2016. In answer to your question about why I decided to join in the first place, I just, my family and I had recently moved to Amherst less than a year prior to my decision to run, and I had gotten to know some of the community members here in town, and had just thought that it was wonderful how incredibly involved and politically active many of the members here in the community are, and when the opening, you know, it came to my understanding that there was an opening in the school committee, actually two seats that were about to open up, and you know, people were asking around to see if there were people who were interested in early education, who were interested in education, were generally public school education, and thought that maybe I might be a good candidate, and I said, you know, this felt like a good time for me to actually put some deep roots into a community that I was new to, hopefully get to learn something, and hopefully contribute something of importance, giving, you know, the experience that I had in the background that I had in non-profit work, and you know, working with a lot of different communities around the country. So it just, you know, was one of those things that I had never seen myself running for political office before, but it seemed like something worthwhile, and yeah, I threw my hat in the ring just, you know, to see what would happen. Thank you. Great. And I'm Eric Nakajima, and I came on the school committee in October of 2016. I was actually elected to finish out a term that was originally elected by Laura Kent at the same time that in a stage was, so actually I was filling out the other seat, and I grew up in this town, went, graduated in high school in class of 85, grew up in a family of educators, and so I've been around schools and teachers and education my entire life, and when the seat became open and people, you know, sort of think mentally back to 2016, as a colleague to my left knows better than I do, it was a tough time for our school district and our school committee, and I thought, given my background in government, given my passion for our schools, that I thought some of my experience could be helpful in helping to serve to also lead the school committees and put us in a better track. And additional question I want to ask is, what was some of your motivation or desire to become, because you sort of touched on this, Eric, when you talked about leadership, to become chair of the committees, and what does that kind of role do or mean, you know, because it is, the school committees have different roles, but I used that word casually earlier that each of you served as a chair of one of the school committees, but I wonder if you had any thoughts to share about that particular role and what interested you or motivated you to kind of participate or at least accept the nomination for that role. I'd be happy to jump in. Yeah, it's actually kind of weird, because when I was elected to join the school committee, there was a low-level buzz that I might also have the honor of being the regional chair at the same time, so when I came on, I kind of knew that there might be a possibility I would both serve as a committee member, but also serve in the role of chair, and honestly, that appealed to me, because this town, there are a lot of people of a lot of passions about what they want in their schools. We also have a community of educational professionals who have tremendous ideas, experience, all the richness they can bring into their, into the schools every day, in the classrooms every day, your leadership. You were either acting or interim superintendent or one of the other at that point, but honestly, what I wanted to do more than anything else was try to see if we could help, at least from the committee perspective, the parts work together better and help people find both policies, norms, practices that could help people collaborate more effectively and get back onto a track where all those really good ideas and all those passions from the community could come to the fore more effectively. And I thought, given the fact that I had a lot of experience in government, and actually, to be honest with you, even up the road at UMass when I was an undergraduate there, I've been chairing really contentious committees and boards since I was like 19 or 20 years old. And, and you, you fail more before you succeed, but I found ways to listen really well and think about norms and practices, things about ways in which you can surface people's ideas and facilitate their talents to succeed. And I get a lot of fulfillment out of that. I mean, if you ask me what I did, like personally over the last few years, not a heck of a lot. What I feel like I've been able to do, which I'm really proud of is help other people succeed. And that makes, that is tremendously fulfilling. You'd like to add anything? Yeah, I think the, the role of chair is, you know, as Eric alluded to, a difficult and time consuming role. And I think, you know, our committees are made up of volunteers, you know, basically, um, who have other professions, right? They have careers, they have other responsibilities, they have jobs and, you know, families and all that. Um, and so, you know, it often becomes a, a role that is incredibly important role that needs to, to happen, uh, in order for agendas to be set and, you know, for the, the mechanics of the committee to function really well, but I also found that many times our member committee members just don't have the time to chair a committee. Even if they want to. So, um, you know, my interest in, in stepping into that role was, you know, two fold one, because I felt it was sort of my responsibility after having served in the committee for a couple of years, uh, to, to step in and take over that, that time consuming role. Um, but also it gives you an opportunity, I think, to kind of flex your management muscles and be able to try things like setting the agendas for the meetings, uh, and leading some of the conversations and the topics, uh, for discussion, you know, working with you to more closely than, you know, other committee members get a chance to do so. Um, so those things were very fulfilling to me and, you know, and it felt, um, like a good opportunity for me to, you know, be able to step in and play that role. Yeah, one of the things that I observe from my seat, um, I don't have to respond to this, I just want to say it, is that one of the challenging things about a chair, and I, less publicly than you chair lots of meetings, right, is, um, and I think both of you have done this and have seen you do it as a routine, is that you're res, you're reserving your own opinions for after everyone else has spoken. So I think a lot of times people have this perception of the chair's opinion is the one that dominates. And in fact, both of you led in ways that allowed for everybody else's opinions to come before yours. And, and I think that's notable, right? Not, not every chair of every committee chooses to lead in that way, but I think it really, to your point, Eric, before, and I know, and a stage was nodding, it allowed for the full committee to, to engage on topics. That's part of what your role is, is chair, is to try to make sure that everyone is involved, everyone has information. When you're looking at the schedule of the agendas and things like that, are you involving everyone in that process, do they get enough information so they can participate very well, well during the meeting? And I think, to be honest with you, I think, I don't know what you think in a stage, but, um, I'd be lying if like a chair has plenty of opportunities to get their opinions out there, and if they think the committee might be heading in an ill-advised direction, you have lots of opportunities to redirect. The reality is, in other words, you have lots of power that's at least implied. So, to me what that means is what the committee can do and should do, and what a chair should do, is hold your powder and make sure that people, especially if they're newer, and maybe they don't have as much experience with the process of doing this, that they have a chance to have that moment where they don't know what they want to say yet, and do you give them the space to create, right, and you have to be generous to give that space to create on their part. Yeah, I would say that the chair also really sets the tone for the meetings, you know, by, you know, encouraging that equal participation among all the different members, but also for the public. You know, we have to often think about, you know, what the members of the public that are coming for public comments, what they need from that session, from that meeting, and, you know, really hold that time for them also to engage and to, you know, to learn and hear what the committee's discussing and thinking about. And then also I think the last thing that I want to say is just, you know, making sure that that transparency from the committee is made apparent, right? And so that, you know, ultimately, that was something that I took very seriously in making sure that that's being communicated out, the work of the committee is being communicated out fairly to the entire community, and that's where the chair plays a principal role, but it really isn't about us dominating conversation, it is about creating that space for both the community and the committee to be able to discuss the issues that affect all of our schools. Yeah, thank you. So another question that I hear batted around and hearing it again these days. How is a school committee member, how is an individual, I guess, prepared to serve as a school committee member? And, you know, if you could describe for folks watching what's required by the state, and what are ways that committee members, if they're new, can bring themselves up to speed and public education concerns both locally and then beyond. Yeah. I think that, you know, one of the most interesting learning curves I've ever gone through in my life has been becoming a school committee member. You sort of step into this role, you know, literally off the street, right? You run for, you know, for public office in this position and you don't necessarily have to have a degree in education or, you know, have worked in schools or anything like that previously. So that means that in order to do a good job, you actually do have to do your homework and take some time to learn how to, you know, how to become an effective school committee member. But there's also certain protocols that have been set in place that, you know, I think sometimes gets lost. And that's the, you know, there's a few different courses that are required by law for school committee members to take. There's, you know, the charting the course of the MASC, the Massachusetts Association of School Committees mandates that all school committee members take. And that's an annual training course, you know, not every school committee member does it every year, but it's required at the very beginning when you first join. There's also the, you know, conflict of interest, ethical training that we have to go through as a state employee, technically, as a public employee. But there's a lot of other resources out there that, you know, that exist. And the various discussions that we participate in the budget discussions, you know, the hours and hours of meetings, both in public and also with the superintendent and, you know, with the community and with other members of our local government that really helps shape a committee member's understanding of what it means to serve on the committee and, you know, helps us better know what we can and can't do or should or shouldn't do. But there's also just, you know, an incredible amount of, like I said, on-the-job training that goes on during the course of those meetings that, you know, I know I was always astounded by how much work actually goes on in our public schools. And we saw, you know, many presentations by our principals, our special education, you know, educators, and many other folks who are involved in our public schools. It's a, it takes a village to get this work done. Yeah, I'm trying to think, what can I add to that? It was very complete. I think one of the most important things you learn when you get on this, well, one, when I came on, I was thrown into being chair, like literally at my first meeting. And so never could you have a stronger dichotomy between a role of facilitator where you're like, you know, parliamentary rules and you can call on people or whatever and then having a complete vacuum of knowledge about what we're actually doing. And so like the funny thing is usually when school committee members come on, they're not in that position. And so they can kind of sit back and what you realize early on when you get on is, oh my gosh, there's so much I don't know. Like, I don't know why we do things a certain way. What's the appropriate way to ask questions? How do you interrelate with the public? There are lots of things you learn, as you said, on the job. And that was really like made clear to me if you go back and look at the tape, you can see it's embarrassing because I'm asking colleagues like I don't really understand what we're doing now. And they would tell me and stuff like that. But one of the things that I think, there are two things that are, I think, advantageous to that on the job learning. One is that school committee members themselves legally don't have any power outside of being a member of the committee as a whole. And so the funny thing is, even though it might seem awkward to come on the committee and be really conscious of the fact that other members know a lot more than you do, and you've got to norm up. You've got to read, you've got to pay attention, get it better. But on the other hand, another way of looking at it is that the committee only exists as the whole of the group. And so the fact that you can come on with your own perceptions, what your neighbors and people you've talked to when you're running for office are telling you, and bring that perspective to the table, but also recognize that the group around you is going to bring their ideas and experiences, including maybe a longer experience than a school committee, is I think really a valuable thing because it helps you adopt that mindset that we're here to do this as a group, regardless of what my agenda or reasons for running were. And then the second thing that goes with that is you understand the value of the professional staff, I mean all the educators and staff, as well as the community. Because ultimately, when you're orienting yourself to figure out how to be an effective member, you're drawing on all of your homework, the courses from MSc, but then everyone around you becomes a resource to help you figure out how to do a better job. And ultimately, that's what makes you a more effective member, I think. So looking back at your tenures, what are some of the highlights? What are the things that you think back and smile, right? About, and it could be personal, in terms of things that you sort of advocate for, but it also could be more general about the work of the committee. What are things that kind of flash to you as you think about highlights over the last three, three and a half years? I have a second contract. Well, personally. Forgive me for saying that. Although, honestly, I know that there's a ton of people who are gonna be watching, who are gonna be like, yeah, right, exactly. Mike's staying. No, I think the stability that we've had in the district run leadership on the committee, I think our ability to improve the functioning of the committee. And then, I don't wanna, if I start saying all of them, I'm gonna say some of the ones that Anastasia wants to say. So, honestly, restorative justice in an annual climate survey at the high school and middle school, common aunties, the dual language program for River. What are some of your favorites? Well, I think getting accepted into the MSBA school building project pipeline this year, this past year was a huge accomplishment for the district and for this community. And I'm particularly proud of the work that our committee did while I was there on that. Yeah, and I think, as Eric said, there's a lot of things that we have sort of presided over in a lot of the decisions that we made that I'm happy to say ended up in, I think, a stronger district, stronger programming. And in overall, really, the stability was key. I think, I remember hearing from a lot of different community members when I first came on board, wow, the school committee is just such a difficult job. I wouldn't wanna be in your shoes. And as a fairly new Amherst resident, I didn't know how to take that, right? It's like, what does that mean exactly? And I came in with this wide-eyed optimism about the changes that were possible and how we could implement a lot of these things. And I was happy at the end of my tenure that we did see a lot of really positive movement in the district. And I think, again, thanks to your leadership, but it was really what I kept hearing as well from a lot of the educators that I would talk with and parents and family members was, we're looking for leadership that sticks around and leadership that will guide our district to be the absolute best that it can be. And so, the things that you just named, the things that I named, I think show evidence of that. This is, and we still have a long way to go. They're not perfect, right? And I think that there's an incredible amount of work and the community should continue to hold all of us accountable for that. But we've come a really long way and it's great to see. And I think one of the things that I'm super excited about is at the high school and in the three elementary schools, we have strategic plans that are in place. We've had presentations. You can go back and look them for the public on Amherst media and find presentations from the different schools. We're making progress on them and you're seeing a space being opened up for staff to work with the community and think about what's over the horizon and in an environment in which you know you have scarce resources and time is one of the most scarce resources that what the stability buys you, so to speak, is a buys a space in which you're actually able to start reflecting, planning, building information, building partnerships, some outside of, I mean you've talked in recent meetings about examples in which outside of our community you're potentially building partners for like preschool and stuff like that. I mean, and to me the fact that we can now see that progress, I mean I know Anastasia was really intense and really focused on developing a capital plan as well as also a custodial and maintenance plan for elementary schools and what, mice are down in Wildwood, right? I mean, it's working. Yes, it's working. But the thing is that's in the end that's what it's about, right? I mean, Cominantes is in place. This isn't about passing policies and all this kind of other garbage. It's about can we see things happening in our buildings? Can we see things happening in our libraries, media centers and classrooms and even the athletic fields, right? They're in better shape. There's a long way to go but you can really see it happening. And that's so exciting. And I wanna thank both of you because the one thing that you didn't mention that I thought you might, but I think I can say it personally is some of the support and then eventually a policy around immigration, right? And so for me as superintendent to have a school committee that I knew I felt confident in and successfully did support me to support our immigrant populations in the community so publicly and so clearly, that doesn't happen everywhere, you know? Talk to other superintendents and that's a risky political move for people to make. And I had the opposite experience here of partnership and collaboration on that topic. And I think that extends to other oppressed groups as well but I think that was a really tangible one a couple of years ago that still has legs and still really matters. So I wanna thank both of you. It's good to hear it does. I mean, it's actually the person sitting on my left as well as myself, I'm sure are proud of that. I'm proud of that. So you talked about some of the aspects of the role that you enjoyed and some things you feel good about. What were some of the, you referenced it a little while ago what were some of the particularly challenging parts that perhaps people were alluding to as you joined the committee, you know? How did you experience them or what were some of those challenges? Well, I think the, again, you know, what I mentioned at the very beginning of this conversation about a politically engaged community. And you know, I think that that's, I still think it's actually a wonderful thing to have community that cares so deeply about it's, you know, the education that's taking place across its community but also specifically in its public schools, right? Our public schools are a resource that we, you know, have to defend and protect and they are, you know, just an incredible marker of our society, I believe. And so, you know, people care very passionately about that and so I think that part of the challenge is when people have such strong opinions you're gonna hear different opinions, right? From the ones that the committee may have, superintendent has. So I think managing all of those different opinions and expectations is, was quite challenging, you know, is always going to be challenging. And I think, you know, sometimes we have, you know, there's been moments where things have veered into, you know, difficult experiences for individual members of the committee or, you know, superintendent. And we've had to just sort of weather that and learn how to, you know, how to engage the public in a positive way, in a transparent way. And so, you know, and that's been a learning process just to, you know, to understand where those expectations, you know, sort of come up against what you think is feasible in terms of a volunteer part-time role, right? Because this is not a regular legislative position, you know, you don't do this work the way that you see or, you know, our congresspeople, you know, senators, presidents, even, or even local government take on this role. So there's, you know, those challenges there, I think with just what the expectations are and what the reality of the work is. I think there's a lot you have to do and that we have to do and that we tried to do to improve transparency, to improve communications, open up spaces where the public can engage. And I think, you know, we talked about this in the athletic fields. If some parent is worried that like their kid's gonna break their ankle, they have every reason to come in and be really intense and express themselves in ways that maybe in hindsight they wish they hadn't. Like literally in terms of the way they talk and present because the issue is so personal and it is genuinely important, right? And that's what you're typically dealing with and people who come to us, we have to be open to creating and improving all the time, improving our models of how we engage. I would say the toughest thing about doing it is, and this is a tough thing in this town sometimes. I know we're not unique, but it's certainly hard in this town. You have to be kinder to people. And I'm willing to say that declaratively and I'm not interested in arguing with anyone about it. I mean, you won't argue with you. But in the public, it's like, our organization is made of people. The population that we're engaging in and serving are all people, they're all families, they'll come someplace, right? And so the idea, and we're never gonna be perfect. So as much as we need to improve, there are always gonna be things that someone can genuinely point out or like accurately not done as well as they could be, not resourced in a way they should be, that's entirely true. The hard thing, and it's something that we need to work on all the time in this community, is being kinder and more considerate and engaging people as human beings. And I like the conversations about restorative justice. If you find that prism point through which you're able to communicate and engage well and or personally as a human being, that also opens up dimensions to dealing with oppression, structural or otherwise. And so you gotta walk the walk. And I think that's one of the most important things we could, I would hope that if people are watching this, they think about how they can present and engage in ways that build that harmony, trust and dialogue and don't break it down. Thank you. So final one for each of you is, what advice would you give to future school committee members? There'll be some election by town council and a combined meeting of town council and school committee coming soon for your seat, Eric, and there'll be further elections in coming years and people may go back to this tape. So you got an opportunity to tell them what you think. What advice would you offer? Just run. I think we need more people running for public office, period, school committee members, town council, what have you. And especially, I think for people of color and women, it's incredibly important to just throw your hat in the ring and to do it in the spirit of collaboration and building up rather than tearing down. I think that there are roles for all of us to play in so many different ways, but that is something that I would say is just do it. It's not as bad as it seems, actually. Honestly, it really isn't, and it's a great, really rewarding experience to help your community, help your neighbors, help the schools. Absolutely, I'd say do it. Well, my parting words are that, so I was walking in today and Jim Lisco, who's the executive director of Amherst Media, thank you Amherst Media for running the show, said, oh my goodness, losing both Eric and Anastasia at the same time. They were such strong leaders and complimentary, and someone from MASC, which is the Massachusetts Association of School Community Members, reached out to me and said, oh, she saw the news about you, Eric, and she'd known about your departure and someone who'd been out in the district working with us a bit, and was just so saddened to hear that the field of Massachusetts School of Community Members was losing both of you, which I think hopefully you can acknowledge and it feels good that people will acknowledge your work over the last few years. And then, of course, the person from AMASC said, well, why don't you do it on the shelf? Send me the link, I'm gonna put it on AMASC's website and put it on their social media profile because she just feels like our school committee, our current organization is a little unique in terms of the multiple districts, and we're not as unique as we think, but we're a bit unique is the way I would describe it, and I've appreciated personally and professionally working with each of you and learned a tremendous amount about leadership and about how to work with others. So I thank both of you for your 10 years. Thank you. Not alone in doing that. And I wish you the best in your post-school committee lives. It's set down a stage in what I saw. Hope your Tuesday nights are wonderful, whatever TV show, whatever you're doing, it's great and your family see you more often. It's very relaxing. Wish you success in your new position in Boston, which is incredibly important work to be done. So thank you all and thank you all for watching. We'll be back very soon with the next episode of Window Into Arps and we always appreciate you tuning in and learning what's going on in our district. Thank you.