Natick 2021 Candidate Profile: Matt Brand For School Committee

NATICK, MA — The School Committee race in Natick in 2021 is a three-way contest for two seats.

Two incumbents — Matt Brand and Shai Fuxman — are aiming to keep their seats, but first-time candidate Catherine Brunell is hoping to earn a spot on the committee. Brand was elected to his first term in the 2018 town election, earning 57 percent of the vote — the highest of any candidate — in a three-way race for two seats.

Ahead of Natick's March 30 election, Patch asked each School Committee candidate to answer our questionnaire to help voters get to know them better. Here's how Brand answered:

Matt Brand

Age (as of Election Day): 43
Position Sought: School Committee
Family: Danyael is my wife. Daughters Noa (7th grade) and Sasha (6th grade). Cassie the Dog is 7. Charlie the Cat is 5ish (rescue).
Education: BS in Information Management and Technology
Occupation: Associate Director of Engineering at Wayfair
Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office: Current member of the Natick School Committee, Vice Chair of Policy and Operations
Campaign website: http://mattfornatick.com

Why are you seeking elective office?

I am seeking re-election to the Natick School Committee because the skills and experience I bring to the table will be critically important over the next three years. The challenges we face as a community, both immediately and in the future, require thoughtful and objective leadership that considers ALL perspectives. I have spent the past 3 years engaging with the community and helping to lead our district through historically challenging circumstances, including Natick’s pandemic response for schooling and critical budget issues and leadership decisions. My professional background as a technology entrepreneur for 20+ years, a software engineering manager, and an overnight summer camp director all contribute to my data driven and analytical abilities while also maintaining a high level of empathy and creativity.

The single most pressing issue facing our district is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

The single most pressing issue facing our committee, our school system, and our town is a full return to in-person school for our students and our educators after more than a year of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. This monumental challenge has implications from both a social and emotional health perspective and on our school budget. Over the past year educators and students have adjusted on the fly to a whole new way of teaching and learning and have done a remarkable job. I am very proud of our teachers and staff for reinventing the way they do their jobs with almost no time to prepare for the change. I am also proud of our students for being incredibly resilient during this time and adapting to learn in a whole new way. As a member of the School Committee, I’ve been honored to work with our district leaders to provide and support an environment where this new way of learning has been possible, and I am proud that our school district’s hybrid and remote learning models have been used as examples for other school districts in Massachusetts.

Moving forward, as we return to school in April based on the latest state mandates, and then again in the fall, it is our responsibility to ensure that the district has the right policies and budget in place so that we can not only support all of our students’ needs but also make sure that they have the resources to recover academically for their grade level expectations. We want our students to be able to thrive and achieve at their personal highest possible levels. This is going to require flexibility and support. An example of this support comes in the way of Math Specialists. Our district does a great job in this district of providing reading and literacy support for our students and we need to do the same for math; our students need this assistance, particularly this year. Data has revealed that math skills are slipping at a greater rate than literacy skills. Math Specialists have been included in proposed budgets for 8 years but due to funding limitations have needed to be removed from final budgets. This year, with a data-driven understanding that our students’ need for math help is even greater, I am fighting hard to make sure they stay in the budget.

We also need to make sure that all of our educators feel safe returning to work. Educators were only recently added to the state’s vaccine priority list by the Governor and it is my hope that they all receive their vaccinations as soon as possible.

Public schooling is of course mandated and regulated by the state and I will work with my School Committee colleagues, the Superintendent and district leadership, along with our town’s Board of Health to ensure that we get back to full in-person learning in as safe a way as possible and our students, educators, and families feel comfortable. This challenge is upon us and we are already working together to make sure we are ready to build upon our successes in this unprecedented year.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

One of the things that I think makes our School Committee effective is our collective diversity of skills, backgrounds, and experience. Our different perspectives and opinions on how our school district should be run bring a depth and breadth to our work.

My business background as a technology entrepreneur and a software engineer are where I’ve honed my data-driven, detail-oriented, and analytical approach to problem solving. My years spent as an overnight summer camp director have contributed to my sense of empathy, creativity, and communication. Combined, these create a unique skill set that has translated nicely into being an effective leader on the School Committee. This leadership has been validated by my peers who elected me as the Vice Chair of Policy and Operations after my first year on the committee.

I have spent my career building teams and consensus within them by being a good listener and a strong collaborator. Building meaningful relationships with stakeholders (parents, students, teachers, district leadership, town partners, citizens without children in the system, and other committee members) has allowed me personally and the entire School Committee to have important, informative, and necessary conversations. I never go into conversations with the intention of “winning” them. As a School Committee member, and in the rest of my life, I know it is important to listen, learn, and then form opinions and make decisions. Sometimes those decisions don’t yield the outcome that makes everyone happy. Often, the best answer for us ALL as a community isn’t the easiest for everyone. But it is the job of the School Committee to make these difficult decision, and my approach of considering all viewpoints while being thoughtful and objective makes me a valuable member.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)

As I am an incumbent candidate, let me tell you a bit more about my perspective here and explain my stance on a couple of issues that have been raised. I have tried throughout my life to always be a positive role model for my daughters and respect everyone, regardless of our differences. Service on the School Committee is often about forming strong and informed opinions after first reviewing relevant, accurate data, having meaningful conversation with our community, and incorporating my experience. Reconciling these things requires compromise, objectivity, and humility.

My professional background gives me particular expertise in information technology (IT), and has raised the question of why I have not insisted on more IT support in the Natick schools. Would I like to have more IT Technicians on the staff? Absolutely. Would I prioritize them over hiring Math Specialists so our children don’t fall further behind academically? No. Would I prioritize them ahead of hiring a new English Language Learner teacher at Kennedy Middle School? That hire is a mandate based on student service requirements, but I wouldn’t prioritize an IT Technician over that position even I could. Budget prioritization and decisions can’t be made solely on where my professional expertise is. They need to be made based on what is required by the state and what brings the greatest value to the most people. There are always difficult choices to be made.

There has been much discussion about the potential for a Johnson School closure and how it was part of the discussion during a difficult budget season for FY21. The timing of this aligned with the beginning of the pandemic closure. At the time, the budget gap we were being forced to bridge was vast. I said then that the communication around what we had to consider was not handled properly in my opinion, and I still feel the same. However, I fully support the notion that we in fact need to have the difficult conversations. Our responsibility is to explore all options, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be for some members of our community. The schools do not exist in a vacuum. We must operate within a town with many other critically important services. I care about them as well.

How do you think local officials performed in responding to the coronavirus? What if anything would you have done differently?

I feel quite lucky to live in a community with Town and School professionals who are so incredibly good at what they do. Here in Natick, our Director of Public Health has done an outstanding job setting guidelines and providing resources for members of our community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our Superintendent (who I was part of hiring in my first year on the School Committee) is widely recognized as one of the best superintendents around. Her knowledge and leadership through this time have been invaluable.

I am neither a health professional nor a professional educator, and in situations like this I believe it is better to ask questions, offer support, and let people who have extensive experience in a particular area do their jobs. I trust these professionals’ judgment along with that of our former Director of Facilities who was instrumental in getting our school buildings prepared and ready when our hybrid learning model started in the fall of 2020. I have listened to their guidance, asked questions to provide clarity, collected relevant data from our stakeholders, and advocated for regular communication with families so we could maintain visibility into how our community was managing through the pandemic. While we as a town and community have not gone unscathed during the pandemic, relative to neighboring towns we have done very well.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

The purview of the School Committee, by Massachusetts General Law, is to hire (and fire when necessary) and supervise the superintendent, develop district policies, and put forth a budget each year. I understand the opportunities and limitations of these areas and they guide my platform. Aside from previously mentioned priorities, the largest of which is a safe return to full in-person school, I believe we have more work to do on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in our district. As the Chair of the Policy Review Subcommittee, I am involved in working to develop policies at the earliest stages, help guide them through public collaboration, and ultimately bring them to the full School Committee. We are currently working on a new policy that will provide clearer guidelines and protection for people who are the victims of microaggressions. This policy is just one step of many we need to take to ensure that the Natick Public Schools are places where everyone can be safe, learn, be themselves, and be heard.

Also, as the School Committee representative to the Superintendent’s Space Study Workgroup, I believe it is critically important to make sure our community receives all of the right information and has the ability to provide input as we explore our district’s various space usage challenges.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

Over the past three years, I have served on the Natick School Committee. After my first year, I was nominated and elected by my peers to serve as the Vice Chair of Policy and Operations. During my tenure, I have represented the School Committee on the hiring committee for the Assistant Superintendent of Teaching, Learning, and Innovation and I am now on the hiring committee for the new Kennedy Middle School Principal. I am also the School Committee representative on the Board of Directors for The Education Cooperative, a regional school based in Walpole that provides high quality education for students with moderate to severe special needs from its 17 member districts.

In addition, I currently serve as the School Committee representative on the Superintendent’s Space Study Workgroup and am the Chair of the Policy Review Subcommittee. Getting down into the details, during my first term I have been involved in updating and creating many policies, worked with other town boards and committees to find compromise and balance budgets, served on negotiating teams for union contracts, and helped guide the district through a most challenging time in our history as it relates to public schooling.

Based on my engagement and responsibilities described above, I’ve been effective and recognized by my peers as a leader on the School Committee, providing further validation of my ability to do the job.

Prior to my time on the School Committee, I have played a key role in a number of early stage technology startup companies where I’ve successfully solved complex business problems and built robust software solutions. I have also been the director of an overnight summer camp (which happens to be where I met my wife) for 2 years, managing over 350 children and over 100 staff members each year. These jobs have given me the skills and experience to take on complicated problems that require strong and clear world views, creativity, great communication skills, and objectivity. Those experiences all contribute to my service and success on the School Committee.
Finally, I have previously served on the Town’s Information Systems Advisory Board as well as the Finance Committee (and its Education Subcommittee). These roles have built my knowledge about our Town government and services, and provide me with a broader base for my work on the School Committee.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

“A bucket filler is a loving, caring person who says or does nice things that make others feel special. When you make someone feel special, you are filling a bucket. Why not decide to be a bucket filler today and every day?”

From “Have You Filled a Bucket Today” by Carol McCloud

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

When my family moved to Natick 8 years ago, I knew it was just a matter of time before I figured out the best way for me to get involved and give back to the community where my daughters would grow up.

It started for me when I became involved with the advocacy and ultimate construction of Natick’s Dog Park: Eddie’s Park. From my involvement in that project, I started to learn about planning and conservation in town and met other people who were involved in town government. My engagement grew from there until I made the decision to run for the School Committee three years ago.

I have worked tirelessly over the past 3 years along with my fellow School Committee members to serve this community and help guide us through what has been a historically challenging time this past year with COVID-19. We are not out of those woods yet. We are in the midst of planning our full return to school which includes budgetary decisions, policy decisions, social and emotional support for students, parents, and educators, and a plan to make sure that ALL of our students can not only recover academically but get back to thriving in a way that Natick has always desired and supported for its children.

I am incredibly proud of what I have been part of accomplishing over my first term, and I hope to have the opportunity to serve a second term.

On March 30, or earlier via mail-in ballot, I ask for your vote so we can continue this important work together.