Tuesday’s election of Christopher Shepley and Jacob Tamarkin fundamentally shifts the makeup of the Andover School Committee and leaves Chair Lauren M. Conoscenti the odd person out — a fact she emphasized in an 11th hour, get-out-the-vote email urging supporters to back incumbents Emily DiCesaro and Sandis Wright.
“The [Massachusetts Teachers Association] essentially bought two seats on the School Committee last year, and they are trying to buy two more this year,” Conoscenti wrote in an email shared with Andover News Tuesday. “Without Sandis and Emily both by my side, I fear that a majority indebted to the union will have greater consequences for APS.”
Shepley and Tamarkin, as well as Lauren Diffenbach and Shauna Murray, who were elected to the school committee last year, all received endorsements from the Andover Education Association, which represents the district’s teachers. Those endorsements came with support from MTA’s political action committee.
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The school committee will choose a new chair when it meets Thursday, but Conoscenti will continue to serve as chair until annual town meeting next month. Conoscenti is in her second three-year term and is the only school committee member whose seat is up for reelection in 2026. She ran unopposed in 2023.
She is also the lone remaining member of the school committee that faced off with the union over its current contract, culminating with a three-day strike in November 2023.
Her email said Shepley and Tamarkin had offered “little in the way of solutions” while presenting themselves as “saviors who can fix all of APS’s problems.” She called Shepley a “19-year-old part-time college freshman” who “wasn’t even a member of his own student government,” and accused Tamarkin of “repeatedly misrepresenting budget information in his campaign.” She also said both trolled her and called her names on social media.
“Those are usually good enough reasons to NOT vote for someone, but I’ll add this to the mix: Both challengers’ campaigns are being propped up by the statewide teachers’ union, who, for the second year in a row, is investing thousands of dollars into Andover’s local elections to purchase Andover’s School Committee seats,” Conoscenti said.
Shepley and Tamarkin supporters shared a screenshot of the email in several Facebook groups where local politics are discussed while polls were still open Tuesday, and questioned whether she had acted improperly. State law and ethics rules do not prohibit elected officials from campaigning or endorsing other candidates.
Town “got taken to the cleaners” in contract negotiations
All four of Conoscenti’s colleagues on the school committee have stressed they will be impartial when dealing with the union. At the same time, they have said the district needs to repair its relationship with AEA and view the union as a partner.
In an email earlier this month, Tamarkin said he was “greatly irritated” by AEA’s “disruptive actions last year.”
“However, the town got taken to the cleaners in our last collective bargaining agreement and I don’t want that to happen again,” Tamarkin said. “Skilled negotiators know that to get the best outcome, they need to set aside the past and build trust with their counterparties. That is why I believe that my gaining the support of over 90% of Andover’s teachers is a step in the right direction.”
Murray, who teaches in Nashua, NH, said she “valued the support of fellow educators” when she received AEA’s endorsement last year. She said she consulted with town and state officials to make sure she was not violating conflict of interest laws when MTA’s PAC supported her campaign.
“A candidate cannot control or dictate how outside organizations spend their funds,” she said.
That sentiment was echoed by Shepley at the Andover Service Club’s candidates forum on March 12.
“I am really disheartened by the misinformation that’s being spread right now about that,” Shepley added. “[W]hat they choose to do has nothing to do with me if they send out mailers or print lawn signs. My campaign has nothing to do with it, even if it has my name on it and I can’t control it.”
At the same forum, Wright said he completed the AEA questionnaire sent to all candidates inviting them to be considered for the union’s endorsement because it was important to show the union and voters his thoughts and perspectives on different issues.
“But when I submitted the questionnaire, I specifically made it clear that I was not accepting any endorsements because it is fundamentally a conflict of interest,” Wright said. “Part of this role on the school committee is to negotiate with the union, and we need to be impartial. And if we are benefiting from financial contributions to get those seats…it creates a conflict of interest, and it undermines our community and how we as a school committee make decisions to represent students and the needs of Andover.”
“You can say that you do not want the financial contributions that the MTA has given to two candidates during the last election to the tune of about $5,000 each, and they’re doing that again,” DiCesaro added. “Why do these groups care about our local elections? What do they stand to gain or lose by candidates who are elected?…I find it troubling for them to accept and to pretend that you can’t say no to it.”