A Cambridge resident for 14 years, Weinstein has been a classroom teacher in a range of public school settings and a scholar of education, and now works in higher education. He is the only candidate who has served as a full-time public school classroom teacher, working K-12. He is married and has a daughter in the third grade in Cambridge Public Schools, with another entering soon, and says he has been deeply engaged with the Cambridge Public Schools, serving on an elementary school council and principal search advisory committee and as a representative to the Cambridge Citywide School Advisory Group.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University and a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education with a focus on school and teacher leadership and school reform. He has been a communications professional in a number of settings, specializing in outreach, engagement, communications and program management of projects in education-focused nonprofit organizations and is now a communications specialist in the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University.

Compiled from the candidate’s statements in publicly available sources

Top three issues:

Expand junior kindergarten to include all 4-year-olds. All children should have the opportunity to benefit from the boost quality early childhood programs provide. Controlled choice is an essential part of our school system, but can be a confusing entry point. We must continue to do all we can to improve the communication and support for families around the process and improve the functioning of the system itself. And we should be ready to build on the early readiness universal pre-k would foster by ensuring sufficiently small class sizes in the early grades.

Ensure a strong start for the new superintendent, guided by a vision and direction shared by the school community and the city, including support for the still-new upper schools. The next School Committee will be welcoming a new superintendent, so this will be one of the committee’s most important roles. We need to induct the new superintendent thoughtfully so we can move forward quickly and effectively with a vision and direction that is shared broadly by the school community and city as a whole. As a member of the committee I will be dedicated to working collaboratively with our teachers, administrators, fellow committee members, city councillors, students and families ensuring that we provide the best possible education to every child in our wonderfully diverse community, and my graduate studies of school leadership and school reform and my experience in several school districts will inform how I approach this important responsibility.

Build on Cambridge’s hiring successes to increase the percentage of teachers of color to at least 30 percent. All of our children benefit from learning from excellent, committed teachers with a range of lived experience. Teachers of color are role models to children of color and to other children. As a former classroom teacher I know my students learned from the “curriculum” that was me. And their learning was strengthened when my colleagues, supervisors and students included more people not like me in terms of race, as well as other aspects of identity and experience.

Compiled from the candidate’s statements in publicly available sources

Weinstein brings a lot of thoughtful concerns and insights to his campaign, and his classroom experience in grades K-12 is important. His work doing communications outreach in a number of nonprofit settings, including education, could also be a valuable asset to the committee. In public forums, though, he hasn’t been able to carve out a particular strategy or focus, and it’s hard to know his vision might translate into specific actions as a member of the committee.