Middleboro Town Election candidates make their case to residents at candidates forum

MIDDLEBORO — Middleboro’s 2026 Candidates Night, sponsored by the Middleboro Rotary Club and Nemasket Week, saw dozens of citizens who heard from fellow community members on their plans to serve in elected town offices.

Candidates running for the Middleboro School Committee and Select Board gave opening remarks on why they entered the races, and then answered questions from the crowd of resident attendees at the Middleboro Council on Aging.

The seats of two sitting Select Board members, Mark Germain and Thomas White, expire this year. The incumbents are running against lifelong Middleboro resident and longtime Lakeville town employee Tracie Craig-McGee.

On the school committee, incumbents Jessica Chartoff and Allin Frawley are against four newcomer candidates, after candidate Robert Sullivan withdrew from the race last week. With six candidates running for three, three-year term seats it is the most contested race in town.

Town elections take place on April 4, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Find information on polling places and more on the Middleboro Town Clerk website.

School Committee 

Q: Resident Nancy Kefalis asked candidates how they will address the different needs of all students in Middleboro schools, and if they think the district’s special education department is doing enough to meet students' individual needs.

Krysten Phillips: “We all deserve a place, and I think that when I'm in the role, I really have to explore what that looks like. It's really hard to know the impacts of everything, but I'm willing to learn, and I'm willing to be compassionate.”

Phillips said as a mom of twins who both receive special education services in the district, she sees gaps in special education services. If elected, she would “look into that and then find” how to address it.  

Leah Machado: “You have to listen, and you have to acknowledge what the concerns are and advocate. I know it's more complicated than that, but that's the basics.”

Machado said she has a child who receives special education services and agreed with other candidates that there are gaps in service. She said the district “needs to educate parents more about what the resources are and advocate for parents… sometimes your child falls through the cracks, and that's not right. I think we have a lot of work to do in the special education department.”

Alex Cook: “I would actually look to form a small subcommittee of students across the various schools to hear directly from them. I volunteer with our students, and they always have wonderful ideas. Sometimes I feel our students' ideas get overlooked because they're simply students. They're not voters, but they should have a voice.”

Cook said there are “definitely gaps” in special education services, and noted a recent School Committee meeting where discussion of the district's special education state-ranking had fallen, and said "I'd like to work to help fill those gaps.”

Sean Mokeler: “I think you have to listen to the students right? Where are the gaps? What are the needs of the students? It shouldn't just be coming through teachers, administrators or parents. Let's listen to students too.”

Mokeler said his two sons who are district alumni did not receive special education services, so when it comes to the gaps in service he said, “that's a place that I do need to have a better understanding of … it does sound like it's very important and if there are gaps then have to address it.” 

Jessica Chartoff: “We do actually have a student advisory committee that we reinvigorated this year. It's in its infancy, but it is something that the students are engaged in and looking to grow. I hope that it continues to build so that we can hear from students directly more often.”

Chartoff said giving unabated support to special education students is paramount, and the acting special education director has done a “fantastic job” but, “there's always further to go, and I think the process of getting a new superintendent in so we can get a new full time director of special education is an important step for that.”

Allin Frawley: “To address all of our different needs is not an easy task. My experience with both my kids coming up through schools is: I listen to the principals. Principals listen to their teachers, so let's hear what the principals say. Those principals are doing a fantastic job accommodating all the different needs of all of our different students. So we need to empower them.”

Frawley said there are "absolutely gaps” in special education services. He said to address those gaps, the district must put the new superintendent on the task of hiring a special education director. He said “we need that spot filled. That should be the first thing that our new school superintendent starts looking at.”

Q: Resident Robert Sullivan, who withdrew from the race as a candidate to focus on his role on the town Finance Committee, asked candidates what characteristics they would prioritize in the next superintendent. 

Allin Frawley: “The next superintendent has to understand this is a public position. They're not going to be hiding in an office. They're going to be at meetings, and they need to be out in the community. We have a few upcoming issues that are going to require a lot of interaction with the community.”

Jessica Chartoff: “I would be looking for somebody who's a strong communicator, fiscally experienced, a dynamic leader and somebody with experience in the field of education. We need somebody who's able to develop strong working relationships with other members of the community, especially the town manager.”

Sean Mokeler: “Having spent my whole life in business, you're going through different leadership all the time. You have to have a strong leader. I've seen it when you have a weak leader, things just don't go well and they spiral out of control. When you have those strong leaders, people gravitate towards them.”

Alex Cook: “A superintendent should be somebody who has worked in schools for a large portion, if not the majority, of their career particularly in a student and parent facing role. They should be someone who has experience with school finances, is open to new ideas and has the ability to see multiple perspectives.”

Leah Machado: “I definitely feel that they should have an educational background, not necessarily in an administrative position, but education. They have to be a collaborator, communicate well and have transparency. They should be willing to put everything out there, roll their sleeves up, be involved and get to know this community.”

Krysten Phillips: “We can all pretty much look good on paper if we list our qualifications. I'd be more interested to see somebody who has been an educator or that has risen through the ranks. The next superintendent should be someone who has worked with a diversity of students and has a strong background in special education, because their next step will hopefully be hiring a special education director.”

Select Board

Q: A reader-submitted question asked who is responsible for the current fiscal situation — regarding Interim Town Manager Joseph Perkins recently finding the town budget faces a potential shortfall of millions of dollars — and what are candidates' plans to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Thomas White: “We're all responsible. My mistake, or maybe all of our mistakes, was to trust in what was put before us and not go over the numbers. Our interim town manager has already taught me a lot in the ways of how he found out things weren't maybe as they should be. So going forward, I won't solely rely on the Finance Committee or the town manager or anybody else.”

Mark Germain: “I agree with [White] on this one, we're all responsible. The town manager set the budget. We thought the numbers were correct, and there were discrepancies in those numbers. But, the buck stops with us and the Finance Committee as a whole. We should have checked it over. We should have been in front of it. We didn't know the numbers didn't work until Joseph Perkins came in, and we will solve the problem and move forward.”

Tracie Craig-McGee: “Not being involved in everything that's been going on, I was extremely concerned when this all hit. I seem to think that we need to change the way we do things here. We need to change our budget process, and we need to bring the Finance Committee in from day one. They are the people that are charged with advising the board overseeing the town's finances, and we're doing a disservice to the residents if we don't include them from day one

Q: Resident John Barrella asked candidates how they would work to improve communication, collaboration and public trust with many troubling issues in town right now.

Tracie Craig-McGee: “Communication, in this era, is all electronic websites and Email. The town has made strides with their website, but it still is not great. I built three websites in Lakeville, and I can't even operate it.”

She said the town needs to have leaders who “exhibit behavior that you as a resident would like to see.” She said the town cannot have boards and committees that are bickering back and forth, because that can erode public trust. “If they're bickering like toddlers, then why are you going to respect them?” Craig-McGee said.

Mark Germain: “There's plenty of communication with myself, the Select Board and the other members of the Finance Committee who don't go online and talk trash. We coordinate with every department. For six consecutive years, we've never had a problem.”

Germain said “the trust is there” and residents trust him to run efficient meetings that in his view have “never had an issue with public comment.” He said he’s never restricted public comment, and “every single Monday night, I'm respectful and I tell every person at the microphone ‘good evening.’”

Thomas White: “There's many people in this room that know that I will sit with anyone at any time and speak about issues. It doesn’t have to be before or after a meeting — my telephone number and my email is plastered all over one of my vehicles. So, I think there is communication. There are some people who just don't want to communicate. They just want to put on a show.”

White said, “I think there is trust here in this community.”