Three vie for two School Committee seats

(May 16, 2024) Incumbents Laura Gallagher Byrne and Esmeralda Martinez and challenger Diane Flaherty are vying for two open seats on the Nantucket School Committee in Tuesday’s election.

Safety and security in the school buildings, hiring and retaining teachers and student preparedness were among the topics the candidates pointed to as the most pressing issues facing the school system.

“The last few years I’ve been really concerned about the safety and security at the schools. Every time there was a school shooting I would get really nervous because I don’t think we’re safe in the schools,” Flaherty said.

“I want to make sure the classrooms are safe, then I would go on to the behavioral problem. I believe we’ve lost teachers because of the behavior in the schools.”

Gallagher Byrne said that while she is opposed to the idea of arming teachers that has gained momentum elsewhere in the country, she would like to see an increase in the number of school resource officers on Nantucket.

“Cassie (Thompson) as our one police officer on campus, she’s spread so thin. She’s such a welcoming and warm presence, I would love to see a Cassie at every school,” Gallagher Byrne said.

“Not this official guarding the gates kind of thing, just knowing that you feel protected and if you do have a problem, there is somebody that you can go to.”

With regard to student preparedness for the future when graduating from high school, the candidates said they have seen mixed results in recent years.

Flaherty said anecdotally, her granddaughter felt ready for college and some of her freshman-year classes were a review of material covered in high school, but she also heard from a student who did not feel prepared for college at all, not even knowing how to take notes.

“(Student preparedness) could be improved,” Martinez said. “I know they’re working really hard on doing that. Part of it is lack of teachers, they don’t have enough teachers to give these classes. Especially on the island, a lot of these kids live very sheltered lives. I wish there were more field trips off-island, showing them reality once you leave the island.”

Flaherty and Gallagher Byrne both praised the current vocational offerings at the schools and would like to see them expanded in the future.

“What I do want to see is to make sure that we have the subjects that these children need to succeed and go to the college of their choice, whether it be Harvard or Tuckernuck University,” Flaherty said. “I love that we have the wood making, the automotive and the cooking classes. I love all that and wish we could do more of that.”

“I would love to see rigorous instruction, aspirational achievement as a school and inspirational in setting goals for our students’ futures,” Gallagher-Byrne said.

“That means not just the path to college. There are so many students for whom that is not an appropriate journey that they want to take, nor do they need to. College is not the be-all and end-all any longer, and I’m very pleased to see our vocational programs increase. I would love to see more of that grow.”

Martinez works for the town in the Planning and Land Use Services office, and was the first-ever Latina elected to a town board when she was the top vote-getter in the 2021 election.

“I want to reinforce that committees should be based on the demographics of the school. Forty-eight percent of (students) are Latinos, and I feel for a lot of parents it resonates that I’m on the board and a voice for them,” Martinez said.

“There’s always a language barrier. Things may sound nicer in one language that may not come out in another language. Things get misinterpreted all the time. I want to be the person that they can come to if they have an issue.”

Gallagher Byrne currently works as the director of theater and education at the Nantucket Dreamland. Before joining the Dreamland in 2017 she taught chorus and drama at Cyrus Peirce Middle School for 12 years.

“There’s more work to be done certainly, and I feel that the first term, you’re learning so much,” Gallagher Byrne said. “I remember Adriene (Lombardi) saying to me that her mom, it took a term for her to really feel like she was settled in and really understood the terrain.”

Flaherty, a 10th-generation Nantucketer with six grandchildren in the school system, owns a taxi company after retiring from the airport restaurant, where she worked for 30 years and served as a manager.

“I go to School Committee meetings, I was on school council for 10 years as a parent rep at the high school and for two years as a community member at the CPS level,” she said. “I’ve done a lot of volunteering in the classroom as a parent and grandparent. I’ve done trips off-island as a chaperone, and fundraisers.”