Every child deserves access to high-quality public education in safe and supportive schools. I'll fight for legislation to ensure green and healthy school buildings, an evidence-based, inclusive curriculum, and an end to the school-to-prison pipeline. 

I have worked on:

• Legislation to allow all graduates of Massachusetts high schools, regardless of immigration status, to access in-state tuition rates.
• Bills to reduce class sizes and to develop a coordinated system for high-quality early education and care. 
• School discipline reform legislation, which was signed into law. This statute requires that alternatives to exclusion are tried first, students who face school exclusion are entitled to full due process rights, students have the right to make academic progress during school exclusions, students may not be excluded for more than 90 school days except for very serious offenses, and schools and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education must collect and report exclusion data.
• Bills to require a 20-minute minimum for recess in elementary schools, to prohibit suspension or expulsion from pre-K to 3rd grade, to establish universal full-day kindergarten, and to report student-specific education data, such as school discipline and special education data, in a manner that reflects information about specific subgroups of students.
• Legislation to restore collective bargaining rights to teachers at schools under state receivership. 

If elected, I will fight for:

• Expanding affordable childcare, pre-K, after-school, and out-of-school programs and higher education opportunities. 
• Updating the state's school funding formula (Chapter 70) to correct for inflation levels. 
• Requiring robust emergency and evacuation planning as part of a student's 504 or IEP process and ensuring that school districts are in compliance with special education law.
• Supporting school librarians and educators in selecting books and characters that portray the range of people in the school community in order to help students to both see themselves and learn about others. 
• Promoting research-based curricula and instruction by providing grants for schools that select from a list of approved curricula and requiring graduate schools of education to include science-of-reading coursework in order to keep their accreditation. 
• Prohibiting schools from excluding students based on dress code violations or other minor infractions. 
• Creating healthy school environments through improved energy efficiency and ventilation. 
• Providing educators and staff with fair wages and benefits, including professional development and continuing education opportunities.