Four first-time committee members will join two incumbents when the new Cambridge School Committee is sworn in next January, ushering in a wave of change demanded by voters.
The new committee members – Caitlin Dube, Eugenia Schraa Huh, Arjun Jaikumar and Luisa de Paula Santos – will join the only two incumbents who won reelection, Elizabeth Hudson for her second term and Richard Harding Jr. for his ninth nonconsecutive term, preliminary results show.
Update on Nov. 7, 2025: In a count held Friday, member David Weinstein was elected to replace Eugenia Schraa Huh.
Incumbents Caroline Hunter, who serves as vice chair, José Luis Rojas Villarreal and David Weinstein lost in their reelection bids. Incumbent Rachel Weinstein chose not to run for reelection.
This year’s candidate pool was the most crowded Cambridge has seen in decades. Eighteen candidates vied for the board’s six seats, almost double the nine candidates who ran in 2021 and the 11 candidates who ran in 2023, according to city records.
All the newcomers, with the exception of Schraa Huh, who ran in 2023, were first-time challengers.
The Cambridge Education Association, the city’s labor union, did not endorse any incumbent in this year’s race.
The crowded field tapped into a sense of voter discontent with the board, primarily over the closing of the Kennedy-Longfellow School after 51 years and a controversial superintendent search process – and a lack of transparency from the committee perceived in both.
It was first reported last month by Cambridge Day that the city’s contract with the inexperienced firm The Equity Process was more extensive and expensive than originally revealed.
Hunter and mayor E. Denise Simmons, the chair, released a statement last week an attempt to tamp down criticism that the committee was not consulted about the newly revealed contract. Hunter got 872 top votes in the city’s ranked-choice form of voting, the least of the board’s incumbents.
Simmons appeared to be headed for reelection to the council, which elects mayors from among its ranks after inauguration.
City charter also passes
Under current rules, the mayor is committee chair. Voters also passed a ballot initiative Tuesday that would allow the committee to elect its own chair. The charter changes won around 75 percent of the 23,754 votes cast for the question – slightly more than the 23,366 ballots processed in voting for committee members.
District parent Chris Dewart echoed the concerns with the outgoing board when he told Cambridge Day at the Moses Youth Center earlier in the evening that he was motivated to vote to keep the committee “as transparent as possible.”
The two incumbents led the ranked choice voting. Hudson received 3,238 top votes, followed by Harding with 3,050 votes. Santos received 2,399 votes, followed by Dube with 2,157 votes, Schraa Huh with 1,937 and Jaikumar with 1,754 votes. Jane Hirschi finished in seventh position behind Jaikumar with 1,556 votes and did not secure a position on the committee.
Cambridge voter George Scialabba said he was “very impressed” with Hudson, who established herself as the most outspoken on her committee, the only incumbent to speak openly with the press about the superintendent search process.
Santos, a paraprofessional at Fletcher Maynard Academy, spoke outside the Graham & Parks School in West Cambridge in the afternoon.
“It’s very exciting. I would never have run for office on my own,” she said. “It’s meaningful to be part of a movement to change the School Committee. I feel pretty hopeful we’re going to see some change.”
Dube, who heads her own educational consulting firm, said she found the election empowering.
“I’ve been out all day, starting at the Russell Center. It’s been nice to talk to people. Especially to people who say ‘I voted for you.’ I would definitely do it again,” Dube said of running for office. “It’s been amazing. I feel like I can do anything now.”
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