The three incumbent members of the School Committee whose terms are up this year are all seeking reelection for new three-year terms in this year’s annual town election April 8.
Connie Barr, Andrea Longo Carter and Alisa Skatrud have a combined 31 years of School Committee experience and will be joined on the ballot by three challengers who are all first-time candidates — Sri Devi Baqri, Scott Marder and Leanne Ratti.
The School Committee race has not been contested since 2021 and an incumbent has not been unseated since 2017, which was also the last time the School Committee ballot included multiple challengers.
Here are three brief profiles of the incumbents. The Observer will offer similar profiles of the three challengers next week.
CONNIE BARR
Dr. Connie Barr was first elected to the School Committee in 2007 and is the second-longest tenured member after Michael Greis, who was first elected in 2005. Barr pondered not seeking reelection but said, “I just felt there’s a lot of work not yet done.”
“It’s been a deep commitment of mine,” she said of her 18-year tenure. “I want to see Pollard and High Rock move forward. I want to see equity work in many ways move forward and I don’t know how that’s going to look, depending on our administration in Washington.”
Barr said she understands the environment this year is more charged, both nationally and locally. “There are a lot of folks that are concerned about change, I think,” she said. “It’s also about their own ability to continue to function well in our town.”
Her own history is marked by long-term commitments, both professionally and personally. Barr is a medical doctor specializing in internal medicine. She has been practicing in what is now the Atrius Health system since 1980.
A longtime Needham resident, she was the 2008 winner of the Patrick Forde Good Person award, cited for voluminous contributions to numerous school PTCs, Needham Community Council, Needham Youth Commission, Needham Education Foundation, Citizens for Needham Schools, Child Assault Prevention Program, Needham Historical Society and others.
While Barr has seen considerable change during her tenure on the committee, she said her view of her role has been consistent — to oversee and not micromanage.
“Our job is to ask questions, be thoughtful, to be analytical and at the same time support the very hard work of the leadership of the Needham Public Schools,” she said.
She said she appreciates that parents and other stakeholders in the schools can become frustrated and even angry about perceived deficiencies in school programs, whether it’s concerning curricula, support services, facilities or other domains.
“There is obviously a current parental concern about literacy, which is of course important,” Barr said. “I think it is being worked on very appropriately by the administration, by the leaders in the school system to find out what program or programs we should choose for our students.”
“Our job is to represent the public by both listening and asking questions. But ultimately, it will be the choice of the school administration. And fortunately, we have a very fine assistant superintendent who is running this (literacy) pilot,” she said of Carmen Williams, the assistant superintendent of instruction and innovation.
Asked about other top-level concerns, Barr said “the budget is always a huge priority” and noted that both this year’s budget and next year’s projections indicate that there will be challenges, especially in addressing students’ social and emotional health concerns.
Barr noted that the superintendent’s original budget proposal had to be reduced by nearly $2.5 million due to overall town budget constraints. “Some of the positions that could not go forward in the budget were in the area of counseling and guidance,” she noted.
She said the loss of those supports calls for buttressing other areas of student support. “That includes supporting performing arts and supporting athletics — all the ways that students can succeed. Because everyone has a different thing that’s positive for them.”
ANDREA LONGO CARTER
Andrea Longo Carter joined the School Committee in the fall of 2015 when the Select Board chose her to fill the seat vacated by Joseph Barnes, who was named interim principal of Needham High School when that position had an unexpected opening.
Carter has since been elected by the voters in 2016, 2019 and 2022, but 2025 is her first time running in a contested election.
Prior to her School Committee tenure, Carter was co-chair of the Yes for Needham Schools committee that supported a successful 2014 Proposition 2½ general override campaign. It convinced 56 percent of voters to add $1.9 million permanently to the town budget to pay for an extended school day at elementary and middle schools and give staff in all schools more preparation time during and after school.
Carter, a Needham resident since 2008, had two children at Newman Elementary School at the time and had served as co-chair of Citizens for Needham Schools.
A graduate of Wellesley College, Carter also holds an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. She began her professional career as a financial manager at Raytheon before moving on to providing financial guidance to small businesses and entrepreneurs.
“The three issues I’m running on are negotiations; making sure that our education is working for all of our students; and the Pollard project,” she said.
“Negotiation doesn’t seem to be out there very much as an issue, but it’s important.”
The Needham teachers union contract expires at the end of this school year. Recently, multiple Massachusetts teachers unions have had contentious negotiations and several have gone on strike.
The Newton Teachers Association, for example, went on strike a year ago, shutting down schools for 11 days — one of the longest in Massachusetts history. While that may seem foreboding, Carter prefers to emphasize the positive aspects of participating in negotiations.
“You learn so much by being at the table and hearing the teachers and the staff talk about what their day to day is like. What are the challenges that they’re facing? Where do they need support? What are they struggling with from what’s going on in the classroom?”
“Also, you learn if there are parts of our employment package that are not meeting their needs, not just monetary compensation.”
As a finance professional, Carter has appreciation for the complexity of the Needham Public Schools budget, which for FY26 will top $100 million for the first time.
“We do not get involved in the day-to-day operations of the schools. We’re more like a board of directors,” she said.
“For example, we review the school improvement plans that are developed in each school, and we ask questions. But we’re not going into the Eliot School and saying, ‘I think you should do X-Y-Z in grade three and here’s why.’”
ALISA SKATRUD
Alisa Skatrud is wrapping up her first term as a School Committee member after winning election in 2022.
Her involvement with the schools began in the early 2000s, shortly after she moved to Needham and her daughter, Lena, entered the schools as a preschool student receiving special education services. Skatrud became active in the Special Education Parent Advisory Council, serving on its board and for two years as its chair.
She also has served as co-chair and board member of Citizens for Needham Schools, on the executive committee of Needham Friends of Music, and was a member of the Portrait of a Needham Graduate committee.
Skatrud works as a financial adviser for Plum Street Advisors and is a chartered financial adviser. She also has a master’s degree in public administration from Suffolk University, with a focus on local government and nonprofits.
She cites another educational experience as a motivator of her decision to seek a seat on the School Committee — her time as a fellow at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center at the UMass Chan Medical School that concentrated on “Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities.”
“That was a formative experience for me and really exposed me a lot to the potential of doing policy work,” she said. “And School Committee, ultimately, is policy work.”
“And policy has the potential to affect great change,” she said before pausing. “Over time. It’s impactful, but it’s slow.”
Skatrud feels the combination of her educational training, her professional background and her experience in having had three very different children make their way through the Needham schools provide her with an especially informed view of the system.
“I feel like my financial services background is important, because the other thing that is intertwined with policy is budget,” she said. “The public schools budget is a huge chunk of the town budget. Affecting policy change is a budgetary issue, and budgets reflect values.”
Then there is what she calls her “breadth of experience” as a school parent of three children.
“I literally have had kids in integrated preschool through post-grad. I’ve had kids in college prep classes and honors classes, in special education classes and in accelerated AP classes. I’ve had kids that have played sports. I’ve had kids that have been involved in the music and theater programs.
“I’ve just seen a lot of ground, and it informs my work,” she said. “I want to continue getting rid of barriers to learning for kids and really help kids and educators recapture some of the joy in public education.”
She believes the School Committee is most effective when it concentrates on the big picture.
“School Committee is policy. School Committee is budget. And I think School Committee is a method of representing the public and bringing that voice to the organization itself.”
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