Hunter seeks third school committee term, narrowing of achievement gaps in her sights

Caroline Hunter, a Cambridge School Committee member for two consecutive terms and vice chair of the committee since January 2024, seeks reelection to a third term.

Hunter is a veteran educator who taught in the Cambridge Public Schools district for 34 years, working as a math teacher, on assignment and as head of the Student Service Center at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. She won a seat on the committee in 2022 when member Akriti Bhambi resigned and a recount tapped Hunter as next in line.

Hunter said she seeks a third term to address educational opportunity gaps.

“What keeps me running is the hope that we can move the needle on academic achievement in Cambridge,” she said.

Hunter pointed to two markers of academic achievement: third-grade reading and eighth-grade math.

Closing gaps in third-grade reading levels has been a long-term target in the district. Third-grade reading levels are a bellwether as to how well a child performs in language arts in the fourth- and fifth-grade curricula, which rely more heavily on fundamental reading skills.

Data from the 2025 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System show persistent disparities in third-grade reading comprehension across lines of race and ability. Those data demonstrate that 33 percent of Black third-grade students, 39 percent of high-need third-grade students and 76 percent of white third-grade students meet or exceed expectations in English Language Arts. MCAS data, updated Sept. 29, categorizes a student as “high need” if they are an English learner, economically disadvantaged, on an individualized education program or low income.

“We need to be able to teach all of our children to read well, regardless of where they come from, what language they speak, what circumstances they come out of,” Hunter said. “It’s how they meet us that we need to meet them.”

“Our teachers have a very competitive salary, over $100,000, and our paraprofessionals have a good starting salary. We have fair labor conditions and great benefits,” she said. “We’d like to see that translated into progress for our children.”

Hunter, a lifelong educator and activist, said her work is informed by her upbringing in New Orleans during segregation and her identity as a first-generation college graduate. While working as a researcher at Polaroid, she organized a successful boycott against South African apartheid.

Hunter said her “motivation for teaching, for service and for coming out of retirement to be on the School Committee” comes from seeing firsthand “the impact of what an education has done” for her and her family.

“I know what [education] does to 10 generations of families,” Hunter said.

As a “veteran educator,” Hunter said she has “a certain understanding and appreciation for the work that everybody in the district does,” referencing custodians, paraprofessionals, teachers and cafeteria workers.

During her tenure as vice chair, Hunter worked closely with mayor E. Denise Simmons to run this year’s search for superintendent. The process has been criticized for a lack of transparency and recent revelations of an additional $40,000 payment to the external search firm, The Equity Process.

Hunter pushed back on the criticisms of the search process, claiming that the steps that made up the search – the bidding process, the direct contracting of The Equity Process and public forums – were aboveboard.

“The superintendent search process was the search that the full committee voted on,” she said.

There are 18 candidates running for the Cambridge School Committee’s six seats, to be decided Tuesday. With one incumbent opting not to run, one new face is guaranteed when the new committee sits in January.

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