My Turn: L-S School Committee leaders introduce themselves

By Ravi Simon and Cathie Bitter

As the recently elected chair and vice chair of the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional School Committee, we would like to take a minute to introduce ourselves. We both appreciate the opportunity to serve in these roles and look forward to advocating on behalf of students, family members, and residents to ensure Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School provides an excellent, welcoming, and engaging learning environment for all students. Here’s some background about us:

Committee chair Ravi Simon is in his second year on the committee. Ravi is an LSRHS alumnus (Class of 2015), and a legislative staffer in the Massachusetts State House. He grew up in Sudbury and attended Sudbury’s public schools. He currently works for state Rep. Carmine Gentile, who represents Sudbury, half of Lincoln and Wayland, and parts of Concord and Marlborough. Ravi has a passion for public service and is honored to be working to advocate for and help members of his community every day. He ran for a position on the L-S School Committee in 2023 to bring his perspective as a former student to the committee’s discussions and to ensure that today’s students receive an education as good as the one he received at L-S.

Vice chair Cathie Bitter is just starting her second year on the committee. She is a resident of Lincoln with two children who attended Lincoln Public Schools and who will be attending L-S in the fall. A former high school chemistry teacher, she has worked as an education researcher for more than 20 years, leading research and evaluation projects in the areas of K-12 school improvement, innovative instructional approaches, and postsecondary preparation. Cathie has also been an active volunteer in Lincoln schools, having served on the boards of the Lincoln School Foundation, the Lincoln PTO, and Magic Garden Preschool.

We both look forward to leading the committee through the 2024-25 school year. The committee will meet in an upcoming retreat to brainstorm, discuss, and select goals for the year. Our priorities will be set during the retreat, but we do know that several important items will be on our plate this year, including negotiating a fair contract with the teachers; taking a look at the new advisory program that kicked off last school year; and our annual responsibilities, which include approving a budget and evaluating our superintendent/principal, who was new to L-S last school year.

We are both committed to ensuring the committee is transparent, accessible, and open to good faith feedback. Last year, we worked to ensure that our agendas linked to the documents the committee discussed in meetings, held listening sessions to get input from the community, and posted regular newsletters. We look forward to sharing our work and maintaining opportunities for community input this upcoming school year.

You can sign up for the school committee’s email list and find all of our meeting agendas, minutes, and presentations at our website: www.lsrhs.net/about/school_committee. We are excited for the school year ahead and continued opportunities to collaboratively support L-S’s students, teachers, and community.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.