EAST LONGMEADOW — One seat is open for a one-year term with the East Longmeadow School Committee and two people are looking to fill it after the election on June 2.
Former School Committee member Sarah Truoiolo attempts to make her way back to the committee while write-in candidate Christina Cooper looks to join for the first time. Truoiolo did not respond by press time.
Since Cooper is a write-in candidate, she said residents casting a vote for her have to write in her full name and address, 142 Meadowbrook Road, on the ballot under one-year term.
Reminder Publishing: What are the most important things you believe the School Committee should be focused on over the next year?
Cooper: I believe we need to focus on securing sources of revenue and finding items in our budget to cut that are not teaching positions. Because of rising costs across the board, our schools have been forced to cut 25 plus positions over the past few years, and I want to do everything I can to protect our staff from facing further reductions. Our teachers are the beating heart of East Longmeadow schools.
RP: Is there anything you’d change or improve on to ensure student success?
Cooper: I’d take a long, hard look at how we incorporate technology in the classrooms for instruction and for evaluation. For years, we’ve been part of the American experiment of providing one-to-one Chromebook laptops for every K-12 student in our system, and I believe the quality of our students’ educational experience has measurably suffered. As part of our approval capital spending for IT for fiscal year 2027, we’ll be spending $147,000 to replace broken Chromebooks. Could that money be better allocated somewhere else?
RP: What do you think you could add to the FY28 budget discussion in a time where many municipalities across the state are looking at making reductions?
Cooper: The FY28 budget is where I want to focus 99% of my considerable energy. I look forward to working with our new Superintendent [Dr. Joanne Menard] to bring in revenue through public-private partnerships and applying for grants, and determining costs to cut that won’t affect our staff. I’ve been studying our school’s and town’s FY26 and FY27 budgets, and I have a lot of ideas, many of which center around more resilient transportation options.
RP: Do you have a stance on the growing capabilities of AI and the role that they’ve already started to take in a student’s life?
Cooper: As a children’s book author whose copyrighted works were stolen by unscrupulous AI companies like Open AI and Anthropic, I have a very passionate stance on this topic. I will be presenting at the Generative AI in Libraries conference in July, speaking about opening students’ eyes to the fact that not all AI “tools” are created equal. As adults, we must ask students to join us in the fight to value human creativity above this AI mimicry built through theft, and make wise choices about what AI products we use and which we reject as harmful to the fabric of our society.
RP: Why do you think East Longmeadow residents should vote for you?
Cooper: I am a creative, comprehensive problem-solver. I know I can communicate in an engaging way about the School Committee’s work, our challenges, and our opportunities, and won’t shy away from asking people smarter than me for their help. I’m running because I want to be of service to the town, to pay forward the support my twins received over their thirteen years in the East Longmeadow school system. The reason they are now doing amazing things in college is directly due to the ELPS teachers who saw them for who they were and encouraged them to spread their academic wings as wide as they could.
