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In a crowded field of eighteen candidates for Cambridge’s School Committee, six are educators and ten currently have kids in the district. Lilly Havstad is both — and thinks that her perspective is exactly what the School Committee needs to rebuild parents’ and educators’ trust.

“I enjoy advocating for families, students and educators,” she added. “I would like to bring all of that to the table and really be among a new group of School Committee members who are excited to partner with our educators and excited to partner with our families.”

Havstad said this perspective is especially important now, as she believes the current School Committee is failing to serve all children and families in the district.

“I just see so many resources — including time and energy — being wasted in a lot of dysfunction under the way the current School Committee is working,” Havstad said.

She pointed to a lack of policy around artificial intelligence, the “rushed” implementation of Algebra 1 for eighth graders, and the closure of the Kennedy-Longfellow Elementary School as three of the School Committee’s biggest failures.

“The closure of that school was a decision made, not after years of trying to meet the needs of that high need student population there, it was actually after years of neglecting the needs of the students and educators there,” she said.

Havstad has taught in Massachusetts for twelve years, including working as a lecturer in History and Literature and visiting scholar at Harvard. Havstad said that her experience as a college educator uniquely qualifies her amongst her competitors.

“The college experience that I bring to the table is really rooted in understanding how well we are preparing kids for college,” she said. “Of course, we aren’t necessarily preparing all kids for going on to college after high school, but I do believe it’s critically important that we give every student the chance to go to college at some point in their life.”

She said that if elected, her top priority would be eliminating persistent gaps in the district. Disparities in achievement across demographic groups has been an issue driving many candidates in the School Committee race this year, and something the district has been trying to solve for decades.

Data released last month revealed a widening gap between Black and white students in 2024-25 standardized test scores. Havstad said that the solution lies in addressing an “inequitable distribution of resources,” rather than zeroing in on gaps in achievement and test scores.

“We will not solve that problem if we continue to be hyperfocused on the outcomes in the form of MCAS scores,” she said. “We will only start to solve this if we actually look at and redistribute our funds, all of our resources so that actually meeting the specific needs of all of our kids.”

Havstad said the district must identify which schools need additional resources to help address gaps that arise from income inequality in the district. She hopes to increase paraprofessional and special education staff, as well as raising the base pay of these educators.

“$50,000 base pay for their salaries is a must in our district,” she said. “If Somerville can do it, Cambridge can do it.”

While Havstad is advocating to increase the number of paraprofessionals in certain schools and increasing their pay, she said that these changes will not require an increase in Cambridge’s $280 million budget — just a shifting of priorities.

“We have incredible resources here already that we can be thinking about how to allocate more effectively,” she said. “We need to really look at what our budgetary needs truly are, starting from scratch, so embracing a zero-based budgeting model, where we center, we prioritize the student-facing staffing needs before anything else, and we build the budget from there.”

Beyond achievement gaps and budget concerns, Havstad denounced Cambridge’s superintendent search as a failure — a consistent criticism levied by challengers.

The School Committee finished their search for a permanent superintendent on Oct. 7, offering the permanent position to interim superintendent David G. Murphy. But critics say the process lacked transparency and meaningful engagement with families and educators. Havstad said that many voters feel “very concerned” that the School Committee and city leadership are not “interested in doing the real work” to involve outside stakeholders.

Havstad said she hopes to solve the problem by working more closely with Cambridge Education Association leadership, empowering subcommittees, and creating a “student advisory council” within the School Committee.

“I do believe strongly that the School Committee has a lot of repair work to do with the public, to rebuild trust,” Havstad said.

Correction: October 23, 2025

A previous version of the caption for the image accompanying this article incorrectly stated that the photo showed Lilly Havstad speaking at a September 2019 School Committee meeting. In fact, the meeting took place in September 2025.

—Staff writer Ayaan Ahmad can be reached at ayaan.ahmad@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @AyaanAhmad2024.

—Staff writer Claire A. Michal can be reached at claire.michal@thecrimson.com.