Akriti Bhambi
Register Forum (RF): What distinguishes you from the other eight candidates?
Akriti Bhambi (AB): I’m a very system-level thinker. For the past four years, I worked as State Representative Marjorie Decker’s Chief of Staff, which led me to extensively work on macro level policy-making and budget work. I had to think about how policies like education policy are intersectionality connected to other issues like housing access, food, and mental health support. I’m also someone who sees the work of government as something that not only forces us to move forward with shared goals but also commits to getting a yes, making me a person who gets things done in government.
RF: How could the School Committee be more effective?
AB: I would love to help work on, if I were so lucky as to be elected, a formal process around measuring the impacts of some of our investments and policies we make. We’re a city of tremendous resources. We invest the equivalent of a private school tuition per student. Oftentimes in budget deliberations however, we don’t have a clear sense of why we’re making these choices. So I would both at the policy and budget end of things be critical and thoughtful of what we’re putting our money and resources into. And also moving forward, I would like to get some really strong relationship building with our superintendent and administrators. The school committee passes the policies that the Cambridge Public Schools have to follow, but if we don’t have a transparent and honest relationship with our administrators these policies can’t be executed the way they were intended to be.
RF: How do you aim to close the achievement gap?
AB: We have all the pieces on the table for everybody in the Cambridge Public Schools to succeed. We have investments, great staff, and great facilities. But once students graduate from CRLS, we’re seeing great disparities primarily in racial lines. A couple of strategies we can use to close this gap is hiring more teachers that are reflective of our student population. Kids learn better when they’re being taught by people who look like them, so I’d like to set a goal to increase the [number of] teachers of color in our district. We also have to be constantly mindful of how our demographics shift and make sure that kids get the investments that represent who they are. That would look like making sure enough resources are allocated for kids who have learning disabilities and kids whose first language is not English.
RF: What do you see as CPSD’s greatest strength/greatest weakness?
AB: In terms of growth, our system is still inequitable, meaning that depending on the school, you’re going to have a different kind of experience that may or may not be comparable in terms of rigor of academics or school culture. And to improve on this, which kind of segways into Cambridge’s strength, is to preserve the culture in each school while also thinking about best practices. Schools in Cambridge pride themselves over their unique culture, but we have to also marry this with standardizing what our kids get. It might sound spooky to some, but we have think [about] what’s best for our kids and the basic things that they should have access to in school.
RF: Do you believe your experience as a first-generation American strengthened your candidacy?
AB: For my family, education was the only path for stability. My parents came here with nothing, and it was only through education that we secured a house and food on a daily basis. So it’s a space that’s close to home and it’s also a space that my family experienced hardship in because my mother wasn’t able to finish her education. That really led to her future being limited and that was a lesson that I learned.
This interview was edited for clarity and length.