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Health & Fitness

Elect Elizabeth Yusem for School Committee

September 9, 2013

Hello Watertown community and friends: 

I am pleased to formally announce my candidacy for School Committee, and look forward to faithfully serving our community with this position if elected.

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My name is Elizabeth Yusem, and I have been a parent and an active member of the Watertown community for the past 10 years.  I grew up on Long Island in New York and attended the local public school system from kindergarten through high school. After graduating with both academic and athletic honors, I attended Wellesley College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture with a concentration in Economics, graduating cum laude.  I also spent my junior year studying at MIT in their Department of Architecture and completed first year graduate level courses during my stay. After Wellesley, I earned a Master in Architecture from Harvard University and am currently a licensed architect in Massachusetts.  

While practicing architecture, I specialized in institutional facilities and focused primarily on projects in the educational sector.  My priorities shifted once my husband and I had our two children, and while he continued to pursue architecture, I paused my career to focus on enhancing our children’s educational experience by volunteering in our public school, Hosmer Elementary School.  I believe in the core values of a good public school education, and as a School Committee member, I wish to ensure that meeting our children’s educational needs is always our top priority.  

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As an active board member of the Hosmer PTO and as a former co-Vice President, I have been involved with a group of administrators, faculty, staff and parents who work tirelessly to achieve amazing enrichment goals for the entire Hosmer community.  As a PTO board, we strove to make sure that every classroom, teacher and grade was fairly represented with educational social, science and cultural enrichment opportunities, and always made sure that our spending was transparent to the greater Hosmer community. Our final and greatest achievement as a PTO board last year was funding a technology initiative that put a complete iPad system (including projectors) into every teacher’s hands at Hosmer, working with Superintendent Jean Fitzgerald, former Hosmer Principal Anne Hardiman, Assistant Principal Mary Kate Fitzpatrick, Educational Technology Coordinator Toni Carlson, and Elementary Curriculum Coordinator Allison Donovan.  We were also able to secure an educational grant working with the President of the Watertown Education Foundation, Amy Donahue.  This was a great Watertown community achievement. 

I am also currently involved with Hosmer Kindergarten teacher Kimberly Martignetti in coordinating Destination ImagiNation at Hosmer Elementary School.  Ms. Martignetti introduced the program to Hosmer three years ago in collaboration with the Hosmer administration, teachers and PTO.   MA Destination ImagiNation, Inc. is a 501c3 nonprofit organization devoted to teaching three essential skills: creativity, teamwork and problem solving.  We had five teams last year at Hosmer, and one team— “Cool Creative Kids”— won in their regional division and was featured in the Watertown Tab/ Patch.  The team advanced to the state-level championships at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in May for which I served as one of three parent team managers.  Our other four teams were led by Hosmer teachers and staff during their own free time.  The team led by Second Grade Teacher Katja Spongeberg-Pearse and parent Thea Sahr won second place at regionals, and also won the Renaissance Award for Engineering Excellence.

Through these experiences, I have developed a deeper respect and understanding of school administrators, teachers and support staff, including their professional demands, their generosity of time and spirit as well our obligation as a community to support them so that they can continue to effectively perform their jobs.  We need to create a clean, healthy, informed and empowered environment in our schools so that our educators are inspired to grow and reach their highest level of professional development. We need to invest in our teachers and show them that we are committed to them. The benefit will translate directly into a better learning environment and education for our children. 

I have met some amazing people at Hosmer and within the Watertown public school administration who have inspired me to do more service for my community.  As a school committee member, I hope to focus on the following priorities:

  1. Supporting the teachers.  
  2. Maintaining cleanliness and safety in our schools.  
  3. Controlling classroom sizes, which have become too large at the elementary school level.
  4. Maintaining an active dialogue with the Wayside Youth & Family Network to aid in ensuring support for the well-being of all students at our public schools.
  5. Making sure that educational opportunities are available for all levels of educational needs and challenges within our community.  
  6. Facilitating a constructive and productive dialogue between the Town Council, school administration and the School Committee concerning educational issues, especially the welfare of our school’s budgetary needs.  
  7. Keeping parents better informed of key issues within our schools and municipal decisions surrounding those issues.
  8. Tapping into local resources within our community, including reaching out to neighboring top technologic enterprises and universities to take advantage of partnering opportunities.
  9. Continuing to advocate for our children to ensure a solid foundation in reading, writing, math, science, technology and the arts so that they may succeed in any field or trade.

This past spring, I had the opportunity to be on the selection committee to appoint the new Principal at Hosmer, and from that arduous and lengthy process, I came away with great hope and aspirations for the future because of our school’s deeply committed administration, teachers and staff.  

I am confident that I could make a great contribution to our community as a School Committee member because education is a top priority for me and my family.  I am a team player, friendly, focused and persistent, and believe that Watertown is poised to become a model school system.  

Thank you for your consideration and please visit my facebook page, Elect Elizabeth Yusem.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Yusem

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