Thank you

Thank you, Longmeadow. Thank you for believing in me, for speaking with me, for supporting me. I am honored to be your newest School Committee member and am excited to get to work. 

There were a lot of great candidates willing to step up and serve our community. To them I say: thank you for putting yourselves out there in support of our town. It’s no small thing to run for office. Thank you to the friends and families that got out there to campaign with all of us. When we were exhausted, you kept us going. When we felt energized, you shared our joy. We do this together. 

Now the work begins. 

-Emily 

From The Reminder: Five candidates competing for three seats on Longmeadow School Committee

The Reminder just published information on some of the candidates running for both the 3-year and the 2-year seats on the School Committee.

“LONGMEADOW — Voters will take to the polls on Tuesday, June 3, to elect their town officials. There are three School Committee positions on the ballot, one with a two-year term and two with three-year terms. With two current members of the School Committee, Julie Morgan and Estelle Jordan, not seeking reelection, the only incumbent in the race is Zachary Verriden. Like Verriden, Emily Hansen and Joel S. Illoouz are vying for a three-year term. There are two candidates for a two-year term on the committee: H. Kate Bean and Gregory C. Macdonald.
Reminder Publishing reached out to the candidates to talk about why they are running and what they hope to accomplish on the School Committee. Verriden and Illouz did not respond in time for publication.”

— Sarah Heinonen, The Reminder

Here’s the link to view the full article.

The Home Stretch

We’re down to the wire with one week remaining before the election. I hope folks have been able to register to vote (if they weren’t already) or request a vote-by-mail ballot if needed. If you’re still deciding how to cast your vote, many candidates for School Committee and the Select Board have submitted profiles to the Longmeadow Buzz website. The Reminder will soon post profiles as well.

I’m not on Facebook but my husband has been keeping me up to date on the commentary and concerns posted in the Open Forum. Tensions are running high. I want to say a couple of things as we are heading into the home stretch.

If elected, I will represent everyone in this community whether or not you voted for me. I will listen to you and have an open dialogue with you. You can expect transparency from me and, if you feel like you’re still in the dark, I want to know so I can fix that. This role is in service to the community and your feedback is important. You matter.

I will treat you with respect and dignity, and expect the same from you. I will assume positive intent and approach conversations with you that way. We are working together to improve our schools and our community. This is a partnership. I don’t have all the answers but collectively we do. 

Over the last few weeks, many people have reached out to ask questions of me and share their thoughts on our schools. I’m grateful we’ve had these conversations and I hope they continue.

If I’m not elected, I will still be a vocal and outspoken participant in our community. When my husband and I chose Longmeadow, it felt like we finally found home. It’s not perfect but, with a little time and attention, it will get better and better. Regardless of the outcome, for me this is the beginning.

Thank you for reading.

-Emily

Digging into the DESE Data

I’ve heard from parents directly and I’ve seen the posts on our town Facebook open forum that our schools “just aren’t what they used to be.” Being a researcher at heart, I wanted to dig into the data to develop a fuller picture of what this means. I’m still new to this but I’ve been looking at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) data and particularly the Accountability results. Essentially, I wanted to chart all of the progress toward improvement targets by group (started with race/ethnicity and still want to look at low income, high needs etc). 

What frustrated me was: 

1. When I tried to pull up 2023 data, it glitched and kept taking me to 2024 data. I could only see the overall aggregate % and White students. I have no idea how other groups performed last year. (Edit 5/21/25 at 4:45pm ET: I figured out how to work around the glitch. There is no data on Hispanic/Latino; Multi-race, Non-Hisp/Latino, or Black students in 2023.)

2. Before 2018, the dataset seems incomplete.

3. There seems to be no data on Hispanic/Latino; Multi-race, Non-Hisp/Latino, or Black students in 2018 and 2019. DESE will only report on data if there is sufficient data from 20+ students, for example, so it could be that these populations were under the threshold. If that’s the case, how else are we tracking and measuring their progress? Our Hispanic/Latino and Black students are not meeting the targets compared to other groups. What’s the plan to address this?

Student group results by Race/Ethnicity from 2018 to 2024 toward overall improvement targets

Some of this data is captured in our District Report Card, but I’m also interested in trends over time and I wanted to chart that specifically.

Since this data is incomplete in places, I’ve been reviewing materials on our District website to see what other data we are using to measure progress. Per the LPS Student Opportunity Act Plan 2024, we also leverage VOCAL and the District Heatmap which I still want to cross-reference but haven’t just yet. The District has plans to purchase a “data warehouse application to monitor and track student well being” and “better analyze student behavior” but I hope we can also use this tech to track and measure performance toward learning goals and capture a holistic, well-rounded view of our students. With advancements in machine learning, we could possibly analyze trends and set alerts when we are falling below set thresholds in social-emotional learning and academic performance. 

I think there is some compelling data here that we could use to make some informed choices as a community. This is an initial, cursory assessment and I want to pull in as much data as I can to understand how we have performed in the past 10 years (pre- and post-COVID). 

I also want to see more complete data sets on our students so we can better measure progress toward goals. If other reporting sources have more complete data sets, fantastic. I want to deep dive into those. If not, that’s a gap we need to address soon.

Thanks to Kara D. for talking through the data with me and validating some of my assumptions!

Run for Something Endorsement

—For Immediate Release—

Run for Something endorses Emily Hansen for School Committee

Changing The Face of Local Politics in Massachusetts

March 27, 2025:  Emily Hansen is proud to receive the endorsement of Run for Something (RFS), the groundbreaking organization that recruits and supports strong voices in the next generation of progressive leadership.

“I am so grateful to Run for Something (RFS) for their endorsement. This incredible organization has been so supportive, encouraging, and generous with their resources and expertise. For anyone thinking of running for local office, Run for Something is a fantastic partner who will be there every step of the way,” said Emily.

“We are so proud to announce our March endorsement class. As the progressive movement finds its footing in the era of Trump 2.0, it is more important than ever that we lift up young, bold candidates running to build something better for those around them,” said Amanda Litman, Co-Founder and President of Run for Something. “All over the country, Run for Something candidates have won their races and done the real nuts and bolts of governing—championing abortion rights, strengthening tenant protections, and reducing health care costs. We know the brilliant candidates in our March endorsement class will continue this progress.” 

“Our March endorsement class is filled with candidates who understand and love the places they call home," said Johanna Silva Waki, Executive Director of Run for Something. “They know the needs of their communities because they live them every day. With more elections on the horizon in 2025 than in 2024, this class is proof that Democrats are not only in the fight—we’re building the bench for the future. We’re honored to stand with them.”  

Of our March class of candidates:

• 41% identify as people of color 

• 27% identify as LGBTQIA

• 49% identify as women

• 16% are Gen Z

• Our class of candidates represents 13 states.

As we continue to build the progressive bench from the bottom up, we are excited to support and amplify more talented, young progressives already making a difference at the state and local level. 

The endorsement process includes an extensive internal review with background checks, a detailed application, and insight from local state experts. 

Amanda Litman and Ross Morales Rocketto launched RFS on Jan. 20, 2017 with a simple premise: help young diverse progressives to run for down-ballot races in order to build a bench for the future. RFS aims to lower the barriers to entry for these candidates by helping them with organization building, a robust community, and access to the trainings needed to be successful. So far, almost 200,000  young people from across the country have signed up to run and gained access to RFS resources.  

Run for Something recruits and supports talented, passionate young people who advocate for progressive values now and for the next 30 years, with the ultimate goal of building a progressive bench.

www.runforsomething.net

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