Category: Newton Beacon

  • Bruce Hedison wants to be an advocate for teachers on the School Committee

    Bruce Hedison, who retired to Newton in 2024 after 33 years of teaching in Hudson, seeks to bring his decades of experience to the Ward 7 seat of the School Committee.

    “I just bring a different perspective to the table,” Hedison said. “I have 33 years of teaching under my belt in the same district.”

    Hedison, 59, who grew up in Chelmsford, is the fourth generation in his family to pursue a career in education. He earned a technology education degree at Fitchburg State University, got his first job in Hudson in 1990 as a drafting and architecture teacher, and developed Hudson High School’s first physics and robotics class with grants from the National Science Foundation.

    He is up against incumbent Alicia Piedalue for the Ward 7 seat. Before Piedalue ran for Ward 7, she served on the governing board for The Eliot Innovation School, a K-8 school that, because of school choice, has become disproportionately white. White students, who make up only 15 percent of the population in Boston public schools, account for 63 percent of Eliot’s enrollment.

    Hedison said Piedalue and several other Boston families tried to take over Charlestown High School in Boston to make it just as exclusionary. He compared the Eliot school to a charter school. He said that making Charlestown an innovation school would make it difficult for students in low-income areas to attend the school.

    “When [The Eliot] turned into this innovation charter school, which is still under Boston Public Schools, children in those schools had like a single percent of getting in versus living in the affluent areas of Boston,” Hedison said, “I just believe that public education is for all, no matter what.”

    Piedalue counters that criticism by pointing out that both Eliot and Charlestown are open-enrollment public schools. The Eliot School cannot choose its students based on exam scores or other metrics. Students attend Eliot through zoning and a lottery system, she said, and Charlestown High would be no different if it had earned innovation school status.

    “With respect to the Charlestown High innovation plan, it is accurate that there were a group of families who attempted to get Charlestown High ‘innovation school status.’ which is the status the Eliot school has,” Piedalue said. “They are still absolutely open-enrollment schools. You do not choose who goes there, and, in fact, Charlestown High draws from areas that have plenty of low-income students.”

    Over the course of his career, Hedison said he grew the school’s technology department and taught everything from computer design to photo editing.

    “It went from me at my school as the only technology teacher to currently now there’s seven,” Hedison said.

    Hedison, who does not have children, said he decided to run after hearing about the two-week teachers’ strike in 2024, in which the teachers demanded higher wages.

    “I always wondered why there weren’t many people on school committees with a background in education that had been in the trenches,” Hedison said.

    He said it is important to have a voice on the school board that can empathize with school employees and advocate for the teachers.

    “To hear about the disconnect between the teachers and the school committee and the city council and the mayor and the previous superintendent, it was really disheartening,” he said.

    Hedison experienced budget cuts as a teacher in Hudson and was moved around to various positions as a result. He later chaired a council that advises the government on Hudson’s insurance needs and became president of the Hudson Teachers Association.

    “We went into interest-based bargaining where everybody goes into the same room as equals,” he said, “and you have honest conversations and you are fully transparent with, you know, budgeting, what the needs are on both sides.”

    His experience has also helped shape his opinions on such topics as multi-level learning and school choice.

    Multi-level classrooms, which have been controversial in Newton, can be effective in some cases, he said, but the committee should prioritize teachers’ feedback before implementation. Multi-level learning involves placing students of different levels in the same classroom to learn a subject at different paces.

    “I believe that leveling should be happening at the high school level,” Hedison said. “Now, when we talk about humanities, that’s a whole different subject. We have to listen to the educators in the classroom, and they are saying that in math or science, it is needed.”

    Hedison witnessed the outcomes of school choice in his previous district and didn’t think the program was beneficial.

    “I don’t agree with school choice for Newton,” Hedison said. “The reason behind it is that we need to have our resources right now for our kids in Newton and to fund our schools and to take care of our own right now.”

    Discrimination and Islamophobia have been on the rise in Newton Schools amid the war in Gaza, and Hedison said there’s no room for that in the school system.

    “My feeling is that schools have to deal with any type of discrimination needs to be dealt with,” Hedison said. “And schools need to be a neutral zone when it comes to politics. You can have discussions, but it all has to be with a level of respect.”

  • School Committee candidate and educator Mali Brodt hopes to help reshape NPS

    Mali Brodt moved to Newton for the school system. Now she wants to reform it.

    A mother of three and a longtime educator, Brodt, 46, says her run for the Ward 6 seat on the Newton School Committee is deeply personal.

    She and her husband moved to Newton 10 years ago, when their twins, Manon and Persephone, were in preschool and she was pregnant with their youngest daughter, Reyna.

    “We moved here for the schools, like many people do,” Brodt said. “They’re now in seventh and third grade, so it’s been a full decade.”

    Brodt will face Jonathan Greene, a Newton parent and finance executive, in the race for the Ward 6 seat, which is now held by Paul F. Levy, a businessman, author and professor who is not seeking reelection.

    A native of Brookline, Brodt has worked in education for nearly 20 years, first as a middle school teacher in Boston Public Schools and later as a school adjustment counselor in private schools. She currently works in Westwood but said her experience across different school systems gives her a valuable lens on the challenges educators face. 

    “I think becoming a mother changed everything,” Brodt said. “It changed my perspective as a teacher. It made me much more empathetic to parents and families. Before you have kids, it’s easy to think, ‘My kid would never do that.’ But parenting is complicated.” 

    Brodt’s passion for equity emerged early. Her mother worked in public health and was active in the American Civil Rights Movement. Her father, who grew up under apartheid in South Africa, was involved in the anti-apartheid movement.

    “I was brought up in a way that if you can see that you can help in some way, you should,” Brodt said.

    Though Brodt has spent years observing Newton’s schools as a parent and educator, it was the 2024 teacher strike that pushed her to run. 

    In January 2024, Newton educators launched an 11-day strike, the longest in Massachusetts in over two decades. Teachers demanded better pay, improved student mental health support and limitations on the number of students one staff member can be responsible for. Organized by the Newton Teachers Association, the strike drew attention to issues in the classroom and tension between teachers and city officials. 

    “When you move to a place with strong schools, I think there’s a strong assumption that things work well and everybody’s on the same page. The strike really showed us that it isn’t true,” Brodt said. “It was shocking to me to see the antagonism and rhetoric around it, and that’s what pushed me to pay more attention to the politics.” 

    She criticized the situation for characterizing teachers as the problem, worsening the relationship among teachers, parents and the city council. 

    “I mean, being a teacher, knowing teachers and respecting teachers—teachers don’t want to strike, they want to teach,” Brodt said. “It must have come to a point where something was truly off.” 

    During the strike, Brodt said, the messages coming from the school committee and the teachers did not align. She condemned the current school committee for its lack of transparency and cohesiveness when informing parents and community members about the strike. 

    If elected, Brodt said, she would prioritize rebuilding trust among the school committee, teachers and the public. “The school committee and the teachers’ union are on the same side,” Brodt said. “We all want what is best for our schools.”  

    Brodt is also critical of how Newton funds its schools. “We have been chronically underfunding our schools for years,” Brodt said. “You can’t just keep throwing one-time funds at the budget every year and expect it to be fixed—we need to actually fix the problem.” 

    She brought up the example of curriculum development, an ongoing need that’s often treated as a one-off line item. Every year, Newton does curriculum reviews, buys new curricula and does professional development to prepare teachers for new material. However, the budget does not account for these costs on an annual basis. 

    Brodt is candid about the mental health crisis in schools today, especially after COVID-19. “Ever since I started teaching, I’ve seen a steady increase in social-emotional deficits and mental health needs,” Brodt said. “But COVID accelerated everything.” 

    Students, she said, are dealing with more anxiety and attention challenges than ever before. “Teachers don’t necessarily have all the tools that they need to help support the kids in front of them,” Brodt said. “The world is different now.” She described how social media and the pandemic have had a direct impact on children’s ability to learn and behave.

    Brodt said she believes that if the world is changing, so should the curriculum. “We need to have schools meet the needs of kids today, and not just be nostalgic for the way things used to be.” 

    Despite her criticism, Brodt is quick to clarify that she is not running out of personal disappointment.

    “My kids have had a tremendous experience. We’ve loved their teachers, we’ve loved their school,” Brodt said. “It’s not that I’ve been disappointed in Newton schools. I’m frustrated that a city with the resources is not treating schools with the respect and importance they deserve.”

  • Jim Murphy wants to bring educators’ voices to School Committee

    After spending nearly four decades in classrooms and school offices, Jim Murphy says it’s time educators had a loud voice in the policies that shape Newton Public Schools.

    Murphy, 64, a retired teacher and administrator, is running for the Ward 8 seat on the Newton School Committee with a clear mission: repair relationships and increase transparency.

    In the past five years, Newton schools have endured the pandemic, a teacher’s strike and a budget crisis, leaving the community divided on the path forward. Tensions remain high between educators and district leadership. As an educator and school administrator for 38 years, Murphy said his perspective is exactly what the school committee has been missing. 

    “There’s this silly idea that an educator on a school board is somehow a conflict of interest,” Murphy said. “It’s important to have the voices of people who have done that work and know what it looks like.” 

    With Amy Davenport no longer on the Newton School Committee, the board has no former educators among its members. Davenport, a former teacher and high school principal, was elected in Ward 7 in 2023 but stepped down in September 2024.

    Murphy has faced criticism that his background in education could make him biased toward teachers. He firmly rejects that claim.

    “The school committee in Newton needs educators,” he said. “My experience as both a teacher and administrator gives me insight into how policy becomes something in the classroom.” 

    From attending parent-teacher meetings to managing budgets and evaluating curriculum as a department director, Murphy said he has learned how to bridge competing interests. 

    Murphy started his career teaching at an alternative school in Dorchester and finished as the grades 6-12 social studies director in Weymouth. He’s introduced debate teams, coached softball, and sat through countless parent-teacher conferences and budget meetings. Through it all, he said, he’s learned to bridge competing interests.

    He earned a bachelor’s degree in social thought and political economy from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a master’s degree in teaching and curriculum from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Murphy is continuing his education as a PhD candidate in the School for Global Inclusion and Social Development at UMass Boston, working on his dissertation in civic education in Massachusetts. 

    Originally from Weymouth, Murphy has roots in the Boston area that go back generations. He’s been a Newton resident for 18 years, living with his wife, a lifelong Newton resident. While the couple doesn’t have children, Murphy says his commitment to education stems from decades of working with students and families.

    After dedicating most of his life to teaching and learning about the education system, Murphy said running for the Newton School Committee felt like an obvious next step.

    “I continue to have a strong belief that people need to be involved in their communities,” Murphy said, “so I spent a long time teaching people that’s what they should be doing. In retirement, I wanted to continue to walk the walk.” 

    Budget breakdown

    While he knew he would eventually run, recent backlash to Newton’s fiscal 2026 budget inspired Murphy to take action. “The budget allocated by the mayor’s office would require layoffs and stalling programs that were beginning to show success,” Murphy said. “And the current school committee wasn’t pushing back.”

    ”There needs to be a true accounting of what it means to be educating kids,” he said. Murphy knows how many important costs get missed in the school budget. For example, he said, every school has a nurse, but money to pay for nurses isn’t included in the official budget.

    “The first thing about budgeting is better transparency,” Murphy said. “What money is available, and where is money needed? We need truer figures instead of pretending certain costs don’t exist and allocating future budgets based on that.” 

    Vision for reform

    In 2023, Newton Public Schools introduced the “Portrait of a Graduate” initiative, emphasizing core values the community wants to see in students. This student is adaptable, with strong critical thinking skills, a learner’s mindset and empathy. 

    And according to Murphy, this student can’t exist under Newton’s current education system. “It does not match up,” he said. 

    “This is not just a Newton issue; education has long needed some changes,” Murphy said. “We are still trying to make a 19th-century education system work in the 21st.” 

    If elected, Murphy said, he would focus on curriculum reform that includes broad input from parents, administrators, committee members and teachers. 

    “Top of the agenda is repairing these relationships,” Murphy said. “We need to get back to the place where everybody’s on the same team.”

  • Candidate Jenna Miara seeks to strengthen School Committee’s relationship with community

    Jenna Miara said she decided to run for the School Committee in reaction to the distrust between the school system and Newton community.

    “It became clear to me that we needed to change the way that we approached some of the challenges and the language that we use to describe what’s happening in the schools,” Miara said. “Based on my professional experiences and my personal perspectives, I think I bring a lot of really critical tools to help move those important changes forward.”

    Miara, 47, will face fellow Newton native Ben Schlesinger Nov. 4 in the race for the Ward 5 seat. Emily Prenner, the vice chair and current Ward 5 seat holder, is not seeking reelection.

    Miara grew up in Newton and attended Newton South High School until she was 16, then left when her parents accepted professorships at Columbia University in New York. She studied American History at Columbia for her undergraduate education before continuing to Stanford Law School.

    She and her husband returned to Newton in 2021 to be closer to their families and enrolled their two children in Angier Elementary and Brown Middle School, the schools she had attended as a child.

    “I noticed that both schools are much more inclusive of all kinds of different learning styles and of students with disabilities and other challenges,” Miara said. “I think that’s really great to see. I’ve been really happy with my kids’ experiences.”

    A big issue that drew Miara to run for school committee, she said, was the sense of distrust among community members after Mayor Ruthanne Fuller’s unsuccessful 2023 campaign to override Proposition 2½. The proposal would have added $9.2 million to the 2024 budget and increased the annual tax bill of a $2.1 million house – the median value in Newton – by $290. After the override failed, Newton was forced to make budget cuts. 

    “If we want to have the ability to come back to the voters and ask for an override to pay for things that the school district needs, we need to start working now to rebuild a sense of trust in partnership with the larger community,” Miara said, “to be clear communicators about what the schools need and what the financial realities of the city budget are.”

    As the executive director of the Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts Committee, a Massachusetts-based organization that funds legal aid programs, Miara said she has learned communications and social media strategies that she intends to implement as a committee member.

    “Something I’d like to do as a member of the school committee and maybe have the entire school committee as a group come up with more of a communications plan so that everyone in the city feels more informed,” Miara said.

    She also said she believes she can streamline communications with unionized workers at Newton’s schools, especially with her experience as a member of a legal service workers union.

    “I’ve been very involved in collective bargaining from both sides of the table,” Miara said. “I’ve worked in unionized environments, supervised unionized staff and implemented collective bargaining agreements for many years.”

    School choice, a program that enables schools to accept students from other districts, is a divisive topic among Newton parents. Superintendent Anna Nolin has supported school choice, but Miara and community members are skeptical of the program.

    “I would say I’m not convinced on that yet,” Miara said. “I’m open to hearing what she has to say. I want to see some more data from other districts about how the finances have worked out. I want to listen to all the stakeholders in Newton that would be impacted.”

    Amid the war between Israel and Palestine, antisemitism has become an issue in Newton schools. Miara said she has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to discrimination. 

    “It’s an incredibly important issue to me on a personal level,” Miara said. “I’m Jewish. I’m raising two Jewish children. The palpable rise in the number and intensity of antisemitic hate incidents in this country is deeply upsetting, and I think the schools have an important role to play in combating that.”

    Miara has spent a lot of her career fighting discrimination through litigation and policy as an attorney for firms in Los Angeles and Chicago. 

    “The schools need to be constantly thinking of proactive strategies and responsive strategies,” Miara said. She said she wants members of the School Committee to ask themselves, “What kinds of education and programming are we doing in the schools to counter bias and prejudice, and what kinds of policies do we have in place to deal with incidents when they do happen?”

    She said her years of serving the communities she has lived in have equipped her to handle Newton’s schools.

    “My entire career has been committed to public service as a legal aid lawyer and an anti-poverty advocate and now a nonprofit leader,” Miara said. “It’s core to my sensibilities that we work every day to ensure everybody has access to the support and the opportunities they need to succeed.”

  • Ain’t No Sunshine: Trump’s tariffs on steel, aluminum stall Newton’s solar plan

    Construction of a solar canopy in the Memorial Spaulding Elementary School parking lot has been halted after Trump’s tariffs caused steel prices to soar.

    The city has made a consistent effort to stay at the forefront of the Commonwealth’s sustainability efforts, with initiatives like the Climate Action Plan, a five-year timeline to introduce sustainable practices into the city, and Newton Power Choice, a city-funded program that enables citizens to easily invest in clean energy.

    As of 2022, the city had 18 solar projects online, which generate 5 million kW/hr a year, equal to 25% of the city’s total electricity use. Now, it has one additional project completed, two more under construction and six planned.

    Since 2022, Newton has also planned to install solar canopies at the Education Center, the Wheeler and Meadowbrook Road corner parking lot, and Memorial Spaulding Elementary School. However, the construction at Memorial Spaulding suddenly shut down when the developer was looking to do the last round of purchasing, specifically for steel.

    As of June 4, Trump raised the tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25% to 50%, causing steel prices to climb from $700 to $900 per ton.

    “With recent uncertainty around tariffs and the tariffs that were already in place on steel coming in,” said Sam Nighman, Newton’s co-director of sustainability. “The project was no longer financially viable for them.”

    Construction had not started, but the project was in the final planning stages.

    “With canopies, those end up involving a lot more steel compared to, like, your overall roof system or a ground mount system,” Nighman said.

    There is still hope that the project will resume at Memorial Spaulding. There are no barriers besides tariffs preventing construction.

    “I think everyone agrees it would be a good location for a solar canopy,” Nighman said. “If we can, in the future, find a way for that to work financially. We’ll pick that up and try to make that happen then.”

    The remaining canopies are larger and are predicted to produce more energy, which makes them more financially viable. As of now, construction for these areas is still planned for the summer, but Newton is not certain of the exact outcome for the other canopy projects.

    “Ones where we are looking at canopies, this could be impacted,” Nighman said.

    The solar projects are conducted under power purchase agreements with Ameresco, a New England-based solar developer, which means the company owns and maintains the projects and the city leases the space to them, Nighman said. Ameresco pays for the panels, the installation and all the upfront costs. The city buys the electricity produced by these panels.

    The solar projects allow Newton to mitigate some effects of climate change and save money on energy because solar is less expensive than other energy sources.

    “So I think if we look at our overall portfolio, the amount annually that we save is somewhere around $1 million in electricity costs from all of our solar projects,” Nighman said.

    The plan includes solar installation on municipal property as a big part of their plan to mitigate climate change.

    The issue is seen not only in Newton but in construction projects across the country. Even the talk about tariffs before they were implemented was enough to disrupt the supply chain that was still reeling from the pandemic.

    “There’s been a lot of disruptions,” said Gilbert Michaud, an assistant professor at the School of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola University Chicago and the policy division chair at the American Solar Energy Society. “It’s definitely not just in Massachusetts or New England or a regional thing, like it’s all across the country.”

    A report published in 2021 by the Newton Citizens Commission on Energy, a citizen-run group that creates renewable energy policy, found that residential homes and cars were responsible for 61% of the greenhouse gas emissions created in Newton. Commercial properties accounted for 37% and municipal uses 2%.

    Philip Hanser, the commission’s chair, said the group will set its sights on finding ways to encourage more solar adoption in residential areas.  

    “I think our next sector to tackle is residential homes and buildings, particularly less than 20,000 square feet, because they represent over a third of the emissions in the city,” Hanser said. “That’s the kind of next big frontier, and that’s where things need to be concentrated.”

    The biggest hurdle is motivating more of Newton’s 31,730 households to participate.

    “There are state and national mandates to help do that, but a lot of it is getting the word out and convincing people it’s a good idea,” said Michael Gevelber, a member of Newton’s Energy Commission since 2012 and an associate engineering research professor at Boston University.

    “How do you get more of them to put solar panels up, buy electric cars, put in heat pumps to provide heat during the winter?” Gevelber said. “That’s the question we’re contemplating, and that’s what goes into the climate action plan.”

    The same 2021 report revealed that Newton was not on track to reach any of its 2025 goals regarding EV ownership, residential heating emissions, commercial heating emissions, and heat pump installation.

    “Five years later, you measure, ‘Where are we?’” Gevelber said. “We barely scratched the surface, unfortunately.”

    To combat this issue, the commission urges the government to educate residents about their energy consumption.

    “The commission right now is putting forward that the city needs to think about putting into place an ordinance for homes to know what their energy use intensity is, and to use that data in the long run to develop decarbonization plans for everybody’s homes,” Hanser said. “And part of the decarbonization plans could be to supplement the energy sources with solar panels.”

  • Newton Theatre Company honors Goldstein family through Monologue and memory

    Keren Kohan, left, and Jesse Kin, right, talk about their memories of the Goldstein family during the Newton Theatre Company Monologue Project. Photo by Georgia Epiphaniou.

    Jesse King and Keren Kohane coped with the loss of their friend Valerie Goldstein and her family the only way they knew how–through performance.

    Hundreds of people gathered at the Hyde Bandstand on May 31 to honor Matt, Lyla, Valerie and Violet Goldstein in this year’s Monologue Project. The Goldstein family died from carbon monoxide poisoning at their vacation home in Wakefield, N.H., in December.

    Matt, 52, and Lyla Goldstein, 54, were dedicated to education and community. Matt taught middle school math at the Edith C. Baker School in Brookline. Lyla was a program manager at Microsoft, a Girl Scout troop leader, and a basketball and soccer coach.

    The couple’s daughters were just starting their adult lives. Valerie, 22, was a recent Syracuse University graduate and a Teach for America fifth-grade teacher in North Carolina. Violet, 19, was in her first year at the Rhode Island School of Design.

    Organized by the Newton Theatre Company, the Monologue Project is an annual performance that amplifies the experiences of communities in Newton. Nearly six months after the Goldstein family died, King and Kohane gathered their friends, classmates and former students to perform in the family’s honor. 

    “Matt and Val were part of our Newton Theatre Company family. I mean, I’ve known this family for 15 years,” said Melissa Bernstein, the company’s director. “For us, it’s remembering and celebrating this wonderful family that was our family—the Newton Theater Company family.” 

    Valerie’s journey with the company started in 2010 when she first auditioned for its children’s productions. During middle school and high school, Violet joined her sister in “The Hipster” and several Junie B. Jones Productions. 

    Over the years, she became a vital member of the company, performing in and directing three previous Monologue Projects. 

    When he wasn’t teaching at Brookline’s Baker Middle School, Matt participated in Newton Theater productions. While Lyla and Violet weren’t frequent performers, their constant support left a lasting impact on the community.

    Given the family’s involvement in Newton Theater Company, King and Kohane said it felt like the most meaningful way to honor their memory. “I think it was a day or two after their passing,” said King, co-ordinator of the event, “and me, Karen, and a few others gathered at Melissa’s house to be together, and we thought it would be a good idea.”

    In the past, participants typically responded to an open call by Newton Theater Company and collaborated in small groups to write their monologues. Each piece is shaped through a process of workshopping and feedback.

    But this year was different. Because of how personal the loss was to the community, King and Kohane didn’t ask contributors to submit their monologues for feedback. Instead, they focused on reaching out to anyone who knew the Goldsteins.

    Each member of the Goldstein family was commemorated in their own way. Over 20 people shared stories, poems and songs that brought them back to cherished memories. Each person stepped on stage and spoke for seven to ten minutes. 

    Contributors included Matt Wilson, one of Violet’s teachers; Elaine Goldberg, a close friend of Lyla; a teammate from Matt’s soccer group; and Miranda Mellen, who met Valerie while studying abroad in Florence. 

    One of the most powerful performances came from a group of middle school boys who had been Matt’s students.

    “Matt was such an amazing role model and support system for all of these kids, and they had these wonderful things to say about him,” Kohane said. “By the end, they were emotional and supporting each other, which was nice to see. But it took me a moment to step back and be like, ‘Oh, wait, they’re middle schoolers.’”

    Kohane was the first performer of the evening, opening the event with a monologue. But for her, the best way to honor Valerie was through music. The two bonded in 2020, when Valerie started a virtual karaoke club to bring friends together during quarantine.

    Kohane returned to the stage later in the evening to sing with two members of the karaoke club. “Power of Two” was the finale song of “The Twelfth Night,” which Kohane sang with Valerie. 

    “Valerie and I were theatrical partners, so I wanted to honor that,” Kohane said. But stepping on the stage wasn’t easy. “I was worried I wasn’t gonna be able to deliver the song properly to convey my feelings. But it felt so freeing to sing at the event, and I really felt very connected to everyone.” 

    The event offered space for vulnerability. “This is the first time I’ve ever lost somebody, and I had to rewrite my monologue a couple of times because it was a bit too raw,” said King, who also performed a monologue. While he wasn’t an actor, taking the stage was his way of showing up for Valerie.

    “It’s bittersweet,” King said, reflecting on the performance. “This has been part of both my personal and work life for so long, and now I kind of have to move on…I recall vividly the night after the Monologue Project, as I was falling asleep, I felt this profound sense of peace that I hadn’t felt in a very long time.”

    Kohane put it simply: “I didn’t move on, but I could finally move forward.”

  • Sidebody’s road from Newton South High School to Boston Calling

    Sidebody at Boston Calling (Ben Stas/Noise Floor)

    In 2007, Lena Warnke transferred from the United Kingdom to Newton South High School, where she met a spunky girl, Martha Schnee, in her math class who had dark, curly hair and a distaste for arithmetic. 

    “Martha would raise her hand every day in math class and ask, ‘Why do we need this in real life?’ Every single day,” Warnke said.

    “It’s so funny and ironic that I’m now the drummer,” Schnee said. “It can be mathematical. Not that it is for me specifically, but I’m learning a very applicable use.”

    The two became friends and started playing music together in their senior year with another classmate, Hava Horowitz. The three members of the Newton South Class of 2011 and a fourth member, Cara Giaimo of Sherborn who joined a few years later, make up the Somerville-based indie rock band Sidebody.

    After over a decade playing local venues and basement parties, they got the chance to play at one of New England’s biggest festivals, Boston Calling, last month, sharing the stage with major acts such as Cage the Elephant, Luke Combs and Sublime, with at least 40,000 people in attendance that day.

    With Horowitz on vocals, Warnke on bass, Schnee on drums and Giaimo on guitar, the group creates a distinct blend of punk, rock and electronic influences. However, each member refuses to bind themselves to one genre or instrument. The women are known to rotate instruments and make up songs onstage, and occasionally introduce a synth or “street trash horn” into the mix.

    They all have day jobs. Horowitz, 32, is a leadership and communication coach. Warnke, 32, is an educator and cognitive scientist. Schnee, 32, is an artist and visiting lecturer in studio foundations for drawing at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Giaimo, 35, is a freelance science journalist. But by night, the women tear up local venues.

    Their success can be traced back to their freshman year in the halls of Newton South High School.

    Warnke met Horowitz in a global studies class. Coming from the U.K., Warnke said she experienced “culture shock” when she saw Horowitz’s eccentric style.

    “I remember you had short pink Uggs that were signed by all of your friends in eighth grade, and I had never seen Uggs before,” Warnke said.

    “Yeah, I think they had a hole in the toe,” Horowitz laughed.

    They got close while participating in Newton South’s WISE program, which allows seniors in good academic standing to pursue a part-time or full-time community service, research, or personal project instead of taking a full course load.

    “We were like, ‘Hey, let’s drop out of classes and do something fun,’” Horowitz said.

    The three friends dropped four of their six classes and opted for part-time projects exploring photography and visual art. Soon they started to jam. 

    It was this class that planted the seeds of their project, and after years of honing their skills and hours locked inside together during the pandemic, it bloomed into the distinct sound they make today. With synth riffs and spoken-word lyrics, the band’s style is reminiscent of ‘80s pop grooves and the ‘90s Riot Grrrl punk.

    “Lena and I did the project together,” Horowitz said, “and she taught me how to draw, and we made a comic book together, and Martha did a project related to photography.” 

    The women from Sidebody pose for a picture, date unknown. Courtesy photo

    One day in school, less than a year after they started playing together, the band discussed names. After an amusing conversation about body parts in which Martha mentioned her side body, they decided on the name “Sidebody.”

    They began playing their instruments in high school, but it wasn’t until the pandemic that the band took their music to the professional level.

    The band members credit Newton South’s many extracurricular resources and programs with fostering creativity among students. 

    “The school itself was really invested in the arts … the theater, music program, band, a cappella,” Horowitz said. “There was just a lot of investment.”

    Many of Sidebody’s projects are made possible through connections they made at Newton South. The videographer who filmed their latest music video was the beatboxer in Horowitz’s high school a cappella group, the Newtones. Their music producers also went to Newton South.

    “By the time we graduated high school, it was like a 300-person friend group,” Horowitz said.

    Giaimo met the group several years later, after her roommate let the band practice in her basement in Somerville. She taught herself guitar at 15 years old and has played and written music ever since.

    “We like to say that Cara has an honorary degree from Newton South High School,” Horowitz said.

    One night, Giaimo and her roommates had a party, and Sidebody played a few songs for the crowd.

    “I don’t know, I just thought they were awesome,” Giaimo said. “I just really liked the show. And I could tell that they were just goofing around and having fun, but I thought the songs were really good.”

    The band is now deeply involved in the Somerville community through local venues, zines, and activist movements. They make their own designs for T-shirts, costumes, and other merchandise.

    “We’ve lived here for a long time, and we’re pretty rooted and invested in sustaining living here,” Warnke said. “It’s not easy to live in Somerville as an artist. It’s very expensive.”

    They rent a space at Central Street Studios in Somerville to house their printing press business and other art ventures. Recently, they learned that the owners are selling the building. They and 30 other tenants who are part of a nonprofit called The Arts and Business Council are trying to purchase it.

    “We started a fundraiser,” Warnke said, “and we are raising money from the community to try to get the sale to go through so that the building can remain as an affordable artspace in perpetuity.”

    Sidebody at Boston Calling (Ben Stas/Noise Floor)

    Sidebody at Boston Calling (Ben Stas/Noise Floor)

    The band has survived years of physical and mental obstacles together, contributing to the band’s ever-changing identity. After over a decade with each other, Sidebody embraces their collective chaos.

    “It’s very hard to define what the kind of music we create is, how we all switch instruments,” Horowitz said. “It really just reflects the changing nature of the band.”

    From their high school years to now, they have categorized the phases of their band into three eras: pre-music, music, and post-music. In high school, the musicians used to “wing it” during performances; now their sets are thought out. 

    As they have worked together longer, they have put more structure and attention to detail into their sets.

    “I think we did go through a curve where we got better enough to be like, ‘We don’t know anything,’” Giaimo said. “Now I think we have moved past that, and we are, like, learning more and stepping into our confidence again.”

    Even at Boston Calling, the band made sure to include an improvised jam in their set. Playing at Boston Calling was a dream come true for them.

    “It was unreal… And to be on the biggest stage in New England was so fun,” Schnee said. “All of our families were there, and parents were there. That was really cool to have.”