Candidate for School Committee: Sheri Leo
By Ellen Putnam
Photo From Sheri Leo
Sheri Leo is running for a position on the School Committee because, she said, “I can see a path forward for Melrose and I want to be part of the solution.”
“Melrose is at a critical moment right now,” she emphasized. “The outcome of the override vote really will determine the future of our city and our schools. My experiences and skills and background are, I believe, especially relevant in this moment. And I’m the parent of a 7th grader and a 9th grader, so we are experiencing the current crunch along with everyone else.”
Leo worked as an elementary school teacher, and she has a graduate degree in public policy - as she described “how we can work together to make things better.”
After she left the classroom, Leo worked in educational leadership, and was in charge of teacher support initiatives for all 22,000 teachers in the Chicago Public Schools. Then, after working at a nonprofit educational consulting firm, she returned to Massachusetts and worked with a school turnaround organization that focused on supporting the lowest-performing schools in Boston, Lawrence, and Springfield, where her role was to hire school teams and support them through school turnaround efforts. Currently, she is on the leadership team at LEE, a national nonprofit that supports educators in engaging with their communities and making systems-level change.
“I have hired teachers and principals and senior leaders,” Leo said, “and I have worked in and around budgets - planning and implementing them. With the override and with our current interim superintendent, we have an opportunity and we have a need for those skills to make change that is grounded in what families need, listening to what teachers and students need, and stakeholder work to rebuild trust in the city and the schools - and those are skills and experiences that I have and can bring to the table.”
Specifically, she said, “being on the School Committee provides the opportunity to focus on budget allocation, which I have done, as well as the staffing component of hiring, supporting, and evaluating the superintendent, which are all skills that I have and things that I have done. I have spent my career in various school-facing positions, including working closely with unions, who are another critical stakeholder. I’m excited to have that opportunity to build together alongside teachers as represented by the union.”
“And finally,” she went on, “being a talent leader, I am very familiar with the technical sides and the interpersonal work of bringing people together to make hard decisions. I’m not worried or afraid of difficult decisions. Everything has tradeoffs, and I’ve found that the best way through is to listen to all stakeholders - something I practice every day in my job.”
Leo specifically has experience working with under-resourced school districts and marginalized communities. “What I’ve learned is true everywhere,” she said, “is that every family wants their child to succeed and learn and grow, and everyone wants a safe and welcoming school environment. And the community needs to be part of the conversion and help drive it. There are never enough resources to meet all priorities and needs, so it’s critical to not only make tradeoffs and be clear and communicate those decisions, but also to be open to changing your mind - for instance, what works for one group of students at the middle school one year may not work for the next.”
Leo’s work in education and what she hopes to accomplish on the School Committee are driven by a few core beliefs about education. “I believe that every family wants what’s best for their kid,” she said, “and I believe that students do well when they can, so it is the families’ and the schools’ job to create the supports and access points and build up skills so that all students can do well. We are in it together in partnership.”
“And throughout my career of supporting students and educators,” she went on, “I have also come to deeply believe that it is critically important to acknowledge and then support students who are the most vulnerable and marginalized. For one thing, it demonstrates the value in every student - their needs, their brilliance, and their potential - but it’s also important because when you solve problems that affect those kids, it’s better for the whole community and has positive effects for everyone. Equity is about meeting the needs of every student to get to the best outcomes - but we’re not there yet, and having the resources to get there is a problem.”
“Our schools have some incredible strengths,” Leo added. “In particular, the people - the teachers we have in the classroom, the students, the families who are engaged and backing up our kids - all of the people who are in this community grow and build together. We have a track record and a history of what we have built, and we have done some incredible things. That includes academic opportunities and offerings that are unmatched in other school districts in the region and even in other states. I know that because I’ve talked to educators and leaders across the country, and what we have is impressive.”
“And we take some of it for granted,” she went on. “All of our offerings and our student achievement and outcomes, our athletics, our drama program - we take it for granted because we have built it on the backs of so many experienced educators, leaders, and families. Many people over many decades have built our schools into places of learning and positive culture that we can be proud of.”
Photo From Sheri Leo
“Where we have the biggest struggles is in funding and all implications of that,” Leo emphasized. “We have underinvested in our schools over the last several years, and all the things that we’ve built are now at risk. We are at the end of the line, and the seams are starting to show.”
“One of my top priorities, if I am elected,” she continued, “would be to work on building a culture of trust, and that starts with investing our full community in understanding what’s going well in our schools and celebrating all the good. When you can’t see the good, it’s hard to trust that our leaders are doing what’s best - when all you hear is what’s going poorly, then all you want to do is tear it down. But we have a lot of good here that we can build on.”
“When we’re talking about long-term investment in our schools,” Leo went on, “the community needs to experience a sense of pride in the schools and their accomplishments, because that leads to deeper investment and a shared vision for where we’re going.”
At the same time, Leo said, with all their strengths, the schools are still leaving some students behind. “We have the ability to meet the needs of every student, if we are adequately resourced,” she said, “and we absolutely must and should. We need to ensure that our schools are safe and welcoming and value every student and that every student can shine.”
“But that can’t be the case when we need to cut 50 educators over two school years,” she added, as Melrose did between the 2023-24 school year and now. “And the kids who suffer the most from those cuts are those who are most likely to fall through the cracks: students with disabilities, students of color, LGBTQ+ students. Those are all our kids, too, and we need money to support them properly.”
“On the School Committee, I would work to allocate resources toward our most vulnerable students," she said, “because I believe it’s critically important. I would also work on hiring and supporting leadership who will center an inclusive culture and the needs of every student, and I will work to create policies that are inclusive and create space for inclusion.”
In terms of addressing the schools’ financial challenges, Leo said, “Yes For Melrose has been an incredible asset over the last several months in communicating more clearly within our community about what the challenges are and what the potential solutions are. One thing that stands out to me is that Melrose is in the bottom 8% of all school districts in the state in funding per pupil. And then, when you look at regularly funded municipal districts, Melrose is actually 9th from the bottom.”
“It’s clear that something is not right,” she emphasized. “This is a sign of structural underinvestment that we have to address. How did this happen? We invested in our schools, and then we got complacent - it was easy to say that we were good enough. But now it’s time to reinvest in our schools.”
“As much as I believe in investment in the schools,” Leo went on, “if the override doesn’t pass at a level to set us on a different, more positive track, we still have to get up the next day. Teachers still have to go to work, students still have to go to their classrooms, and School Committee members still need to lead and set a path forward. The decisions will be hard either way, and if the override doesn’t pass, they will all be worse. But it’s still our job, and there’s no walking away from the schools and the students, regardless of the outcome.”
“But oh, my gosh,” Leo said, “I’m doing everything I can to help the override pass at the highest amount. I plan to vote “Yes” on all three questions, and I encourage and urge all Melrose voters to consider doing the same. If we live in this beautiful community, we have to invest in city services, including but not limited to the schools.”
Photo From Sheri Leo
Outside of financial issues, Leo is “excited to be part of the process of hiring a new superintendent” if she is elected to the School Committee. “We need to attract and hire a superintendent who understands Melrose, who shares our values, and who is committed to staying here and building for the long term. I have run senior leader searches, and I am excited to build a selection process that is transparent to everyone in the community and invites all stakeholder voices. We want to create the opportunity for candidates to get to know Melrose before they come here and ensure that we have the right fit.”
“This ties into my larger priority of building trust within the community,” Leo went on. “I believe that it starts with having a transparent and inclusive process for hiring the new superintendent, so we can set them up to then build trust with stakeholders and get off on the right foot with the community.”
Leo also emphasized that supporting the needs of every student is a top priority for her. “Every student deserves to feel welcome, valued, and safe,” she said, “especially those who are most vulnerable. And that starts with fully staffing special education services. And this also holds true at school level. We all know that middle school is a critical time for students, and there have been attempts for additional deeper investment there in the past - it’s an important area for us to continue to keep our eye on the ball.”
“I’ve actually been so pleased with the secondary school approach,” Leo went on. “Mr. Merrill and his team are doing an incredible job. Like many middle school parents, I had trepidation about removing the middle school principal position and reducing staffing, but I’ve found so far that Mr. Merrill and his team have created coherence and consistency, and they’re raising the expectations and improving the experience for middle schoolers. This is one place where I think we’re learning something that we can carry forward,” although she noted that not all of the changes that the district made due to budget pressures have had such a positive outcome.
Asked about her thoughts on the decisions the School Committee made during this session, Leo reflected, “there were some decisions where I might have voted differently, and on others I think I would have voted with the majority, but I don't think it’s fair to second-guess where they landed. The School Committee was split on a number of critical decisions this year, with people on both sides, and I think that’s healthy and important.”
“Leadership is about having conversations and stepping forward if you disagree,” she went on, “and once a decision is made, supporting the group’s decision. I think that second-guessing just creates camps and division. If I’m elected to the School Committee, I plan to focus on moving forward - there’s too much conversation about who you’re with and who you’re against.”
Sheri and her family - her husband, her children (who are in the 7th and 9th grades), and her parents - moved to Melrose 14 years ago, and they all live together in a two-family house. “It’s pretty cool, because we get to see my parents all the time,” she said, “and also because we have more connections across generations in our community than we would otherwise. My parents are involved in their church, and they go to events at the senior center. They’re also deeply committed to Melrose - even though we’re all transplants.”
“It’s just so awesome that Melrose is a town where we’re not alone in living in a multigenerational household - Melrose welcomes that and it’s still possible here. And I don’t want us to lose that - it’s good for children to be around seniors, and it’s good for seniors to be connected to the community. None of us has ever run for anything before, but my dad is my treasurer, and my mom is putting signs out for me.”
Melrose’s small-town feel and its walkability are what drew Leo and her family here - and she sees our neighborhood schools as an important part of the fabric of our community. “When you walk by the middle and high school around the time that school starts,” she reflected, “and you see all these groups of kids converging on the schools, walking together with their friends - it’s truly magical. I think it’s one of the biggest assets we have, and we’ll lose that kind of community if we don’t care for it.”
“We punch above our weight in so many things,” Leo added, “if only we would invest in our community the way it deserves. We have so much to build on - and this is our moment.”
