NORTHAMPTON — The School Committee’s Ward 2 vacancy was filled during a Jan. 13 joint meeting between the committee and the City Council when the two bodies approved Anat Weisenfreund to fill the role.
Weisenfreund is the Director of Head Start and early learning programs in the city through her role with Community Action Pioneer Valley. Joining the meeting remotely via Vienna, Austria, where she was visiting family, she spoke about her interest in the position and why she felt she was best to finish out the term of the Ward 2 seat.
“I have worked with very young vulnerable children and their families for over 30 years in many different roles, in clinical roles, leadership roles, advocacy roles and in many different places,” said Weisenfreund. “We all know it’s the quality and consistency of relationships that are primary for the healthy development of education and success of our children.”
The vacancy for the Ward 2 seat followed the resignation of previous committee member Karen Foster, who cited personal reasons for her reason for departure last month. Weisenfreund will serve the remainder of the term until later this November during the municipal elections where she will have to run formally as a candidate to keep the role into a new term.
“I really believe that the way we are with each other really impacts the way staff can be with children and directly impacts the development and healthy education of our children,” Weisenfreund said. “I would be honored to lend my experience and skills in service of our city’s children, families and educators and to have the opportunity to work alongside all of you as the interim School Committee member for Ward 2.”
The other candidate who interviewed with the two city bodies was Angela Wack. Wack cited her children as inspiration for adding her name as the potential interim member of Ward 2 and said she and her family are new to Northampton since 2022 via Gainesville, Florida.
Wack cited that while in Florida she served as president of a Parent Teacher Association and helped navigate her district during the coronavirus pandemic.
“After reviewing my requirements, I realized this was my opportunity to make a difference,” Wack said. “I have experienced working with very frustrating people before and I am very capable of sitting back, building relationships, getting done what can get done and working on those things that may take a little longer. There are going to be a wide variety of viewpoints regardless on any issue you’re looking at. The goal is to come to a consensus, and sometimes you come to a consensus even with varying different views if you can establish a good goal.”
When opened to feedback and follow up questions of School Committee members and councilors, many cited Weisenfreund’s history and experience in Northampton.
Mayor and School Committee Chair Gina-Louise Sciarra pointed out during discussion that whoever would be replacing Foster on Ward 2 would also become a member of the district’s Budget and Property Subcommittee, as she had previously been in that role as well. To this point, Sciarra added she was impressed with the budget experience of Weisenfreund after meeting with her.
“It was great to meet with her and sort of geek out with her on some of the humungous budgets that she’s been responsible for or been part of,” Sciarra said. “It is my intention to appoint whoever we choose to the Budget and Property Subcomittee, so I really value that experience.”
A graduate of Hampshire College, Weisenfreund has lived in the city since the late 1990s and specifically in Ward 2 for the last eight years.
Weisenfreund won a 14-2 vote and will now serve until the November municipal election where she will need to seek election to the position. Ward 3 City Councilor Quaverly Rothenberg and Ward 4 School Committee member Michael Stein abstained from the vote.
“I’m so grateful that both of you took advantage of this opportunity and had that impulse to serve. I really want everyone in the community to feel like this is a job anyone in the community can do and should do,” said Rothenberg. “I think its healthy when we have turnover and I think its healthy when we have different perspectives.”
