To help voters make decisions, Andover News is publishing profiles of candidates running in the 2025 Andover Town Election on March 25. You can also view all Andover News election coverage.
Responses are from a questionnaire sent to all candidates in February and, in some cases, have been edited for length and clarity. Today’s profile is from Jake Tamarkin, a first time political candidate running in a four-way race for two open seats on the school committee.
The Basics
Family: Spouse, two kids (AHS and Doherty), Taco the Bichon, Manny the cat and Millie the surprisingly unflappable rabbit.
Education: MBA from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business
Occupation: CEO of Everyday Life Insurance
Campaign Website: https://www.tamarkinforschools.com/
Campaign Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/tamarkinforschools
Campaign Instagram profile: https://www.instagram.com/tamarkin.for.schools
What prompted you to run for elected office?
Andover thrives because its residents go above and beyond. I have wanted to do my part ever since we moved here in 2017 but it wasn’t until APS’s financial challenges became apparent that I saw an opportunity where my 25 years in finance and leading large organizations through challenging times could make a difference.
More about Jake:
We moved to Andover from Brooklyn, New York in 2017. My wife and I both grew up in Connecticut and lived in New York City for many years. We wanted to move to Andover because we saw an opportunity to offer our kids a better quality of life than we felt we could provide them in the big city. We were right!
On the Issues
What are the most important issues facing Andover that you will need to address if elected on March 25?
Since the question is about Andover and not specifically APS, here are a few School Committee topics that I think all residents should be concerned about:
(1) Getting APS to a sustainable budget.
(2) Reversing an enrollment decline at APS that is almost 3 times worse than the state overall.
(3) Improving the dysfunctional relationship APS has with its educators.
(4) Come up with a plan for Andover High School’s facilities that everyone can buy in to.
What are your thoughts on Andover’s comparative school performance? In what ways can it be improved?
I hear numerous parents and teachers complain that we aren’t doing enough to challenge our most gifted students. I suspect this is one reason why our test scores are not as competitive as they used to be. Teachers who have worked at APS for 20+ years tell me that they don’t have as much support as they used to – for example, elementary teachers used to have an assistant and often parent volunteers who could help them break up the class into smaller groups, which makes it easier to give kids challenging work at any level. This tells me that we need a fresh look at our overall staffing model.
Also, I don’t see how it’s possible to have a high performing school district if the leadership has a fundamentally adversarial relationship with its teachers. The state pointed this out in their 2022 audit, and the relationship seems to have only deteriorated since then. As someone who has done a lot of hiring and firing over my 25 years in business, including the last 6 as a corporate CEO, I have learned that employees will go above and beyond if you treat them with respect and make them feel appreciated – and will only do the bare minimum if you don’t. We weren’t the only town to face a teacher strike recently, but we are the only one I am aware of that hasn’t had some kind of post strike reconciliation. Newton brought in a mediator to bring everyone together, for example, and from what I hear, it’s been incredibly successful at getting back to a more productive relationship. To continue with the Newton example, another benefit of a better relationship with their teacher’s union is that they are actually gaining the union’s help in managing and improving teacher performance. Imagine that!
Andover is considering a plan to upgrade Andover High School to extend its life until the Town is in a better position to apply for state aid to build a new school. Please outline your position on the AHS project.
I watched a recording of the first public forum on the project and was surprised at the lack of progress, given that the town approved the design budget 15 months ago. If nothing else, it makes me feel like APS leadership doesn’t view AHS’s facilities as a particularly urgent issue. Candidly, I feel like the problems we’re trying to solve have never been articulated well and that is one of the reasons I believe there isn’t more support for a new high school.
Andover Public Schools is facing a $1.9 budget deficit — the second deficit in as many years. The school committee is considering a plan that cuts 19 FTEs and raises certain student fees. Please outline your position on the APS budget issue and the strategies proposed to close the deficit.
APS has suffered from years of suboptimal financial decisions. One-sided labor agreements, Committing years of operating budget to capital expenditures, Underutilized school buildings, to name but three costly examples. Every year since 2022, APS has been forecasting deficits every year going forward in its 5 year model.
If this were just a one-time thing, then reducing our workforce a little would make sense to me. However, we’re facing a structural deficit, meaning that we need more substantial change to get to a sustainable cost structure. The way I have done that in the past is to convene a cross-functional task force that is charged with developing a set of options that will position us to achieve our goals in a cost-effective way. No idea is off the table and they have to be given the room to work independently. One benefit of this approach is that by having the work done with a diverse group of stakeholders, it is much, much easier to gain the buy-in of the broader community once you have a solution to propose.
One area the task force should look at is special education. I understand that our approach is limited by tight state regulations, but we appear to be in the awful situation of unhappy parents, unhappy teachers, and unhappy budgeters. We need a better model for how we serve these kids.
In addition, I have to wonder how much money our adversarial stance toward the teacher’s union costs us. We spend a lot more money on lawyers than most school districts our size, and from what I understand a lot of that is spent on going to the mat on employee grievances. At the same time, our win/loss record on those is not good, so I don’t get why we keep doing this. We also seem to have a lot more academic coaches than other districts, and I can’t help but wonder if that is at least in part due to our inability to get the union’s help managing teacher performance.
Outline your views on class-size guidelines established by the school committee. If you advocate for smaller classes, what tradeoffs could APS make to fund it?
As a parent, I have always thought smaller classes were better for my kids. So I was surprised when I was meeting with some elementary school teachers recently who were telling me about APS’s “golden era” and that class sizes were actually larger then than they are now. But it worked well because the teachers had more support from assistants and parents.
Regarding tradeoffs, life has taught me that great teachers make great schools more than facilities do. My high school was so underfunded the letters of our name were falling off of it the entire time I went there. It’s formal name was Edwin O Smith School but everyone knew it as “dwin mith chool” ! We also couldn’t afford a football team. However, the kids in my class were amazing students. I was embarrassed to share my SAT score because it was only in the 90th percentile. Many went on to do big things like becoming the first paid employee at Google, or founding the multi platinum selling band Weezer, to name two examples of people who should have paid for our drinks at the reunion! I think the key was that it was in a college town and many of our parents were college professors who placed a big emphasis on the importance of education and the teachers delivering it.
APS has had a 3.75 percent annual budget increase over the past ten years. Is that sustainable? What are your ideas to keep cost growth in line with revenue?
It is not mathematically possible to perpetually raise taxes faster than the rate of inflation without turning Andover into an enclave for the super elite, at which point there will be no public school families left to attend APS. Municipal finance is a delicate balancing act. I also think that APS’s credibility with taxpayers is not as strong as it could be. We need to show that we are better stewards of our neighbors money if we expect them to go above and beyond for APS.
And if we do our job right with the cross-functional budget task force I described earlier, it won’t be hard to keep cost growth in line with revenue.
On The Campaign Trail
What differentiates you from your opponent(s)?
Deep financial expertise and loads of experience aligning large organizations with diverse stakeholder groups toward a better future.
Is there anything else you want Andover News readers to know about you and your campaign?
The three things I am known for in my professional network are analytical skills, collaborative work style and integrity in everything I do. That is what you can expect if you elect me.