Governor Maura Healey appointed Kristen Smidy, a former teacher, principal and superintendent, to the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Smidy currently serves as the associate director for accreditation and school improvement for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.
As a board member, Smidy’s responsibilities will include approving curriculum standards and regulations, hiring and supervising the commissioner of education, voting on charter school applications, and deciding whether to intervene when districts have consecutive years of low academic performance.
Smidy, who begins in her role Sept. 30, will be one of nine members on the state education board who are appointed by the governor. The board also includes the secretary of education and an elected student who serves as the president of the State Student Advisory Council.
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“It’s a real honor,” Smidy told the Globe. “I do feel really passionately about making sure that students from across the state get equitable opportunities.”
A Massachusetts native from Auburn, Smidy now lives in Westfield. Previously, she served as superintendent for the Gateway Regional School District in Huntington, a school principal at Hampshire Regional High School, and a social studies teacher at Duggan Middle School in Springfield.
Having worked for rural school districts, Smidy said she has observed that rural students don’t always have the same opportunities than their suburban and urban counterparts.
“Students sometimes will travel on a bus for an hour before getting to school, and will need to travel an hour home after school,” she said. “When regional transportation isn’t reimbursed at the full amount and then schools need to make the difference up, it just takes away from the district’s ability to offer stronger programming or smaller class sizes because of simple transportation issues.”
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These issues often make it harder for districts to attract candidates for teaching positions as well, she said.
Smidy is excited to bring the rural perspective to the board, while also being eager to learn from others across the state, she said.
Her commitment to high-quality instruction and her diverse perspective are assets to the board, said Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler.
“Diverse perspectives add significant depth to the discussions that we have at the board, and we want to make sure that the decisions that we’re making reflect the broad diversity of the communities in Massachusetts,” Tutwiler said. “Kristen is just a wonderful addition to that effort.”
Smidy said she wants to be realistic about what teachers and administrators are able to do to support students.
“We want to make sure that anything we set at the state policy level is feasible and sustainable,” she said.
Smidy attended Auburn Pubic Schools, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Boston University. She has served on the legislative committee for the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, the Connecticut Valley Superintendent Roundtable Executive Board, and the Massachusetts Inclusive Higher Education task force.
Marcela Rodrigues can be reached at marcela.rodrigues@globe.com.