LaRock Stepping Down From School Committee

Editor's note: This article was updated on Saturday at 1:45 a.m. with comments from Don Lehman.

Melrose School Committee member J.D. LaRock is stepping down from the Melrose School Committee effective Wednesday, Sept. 14, he announced on Friday afternoon.

LaRock, 37, said in an emailed press release that he has accepted a job in Paris at the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), an international agency that works with the United States and 33 other nations on various public policy issues. He will join the OECD as a senior analyst in the agency’s Education Directorate, where he will lead a team of economists and statisticians who work with the OECD’s member nations to craft more effective education policies.

The opportunity came about "very unexpectedly," LaRock said in a phone interview. He's currently special assistant to the president of Northeastern University and previously worked as policy director at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Education.

LaRock added that he had previously been offered two positions back in Washington, D.C., where he once worked as senior education advisor to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, and turned them down "in large part" because those opportunities came about early in his Melrose School Committee term.

"So it wasn’t easy but at the end of the day, my wife and I decided that this opportunity was unlikely to come again if we turned it down, and it would be something very special not just for me professionally,  but for my wife and my daughter," he said. "So that was really the factor that tipped things in the direction of deciding to go to Paris."

. According to the Melrose city charter, former School Committee member Don Lehman is next in line to fill the vacancy created by LaRock’s departure, having receiving the highest number of votes of committee candidates who were not elected. In 2009, committee member Carrie Kourkoumelis bested Lehman by 56 votes for the last of the three seats up for grabs on the committee.

In an email, Lehman said it would be an "honor" to serve on the School Committee again if offered.

"I cannot commit that I will accept the position, if offered, but I am leaning that way," he said. "I've spoken with J.D. and (Chairwoman) Margaret Driscoll and both have been very gracious.  I have two children in Melrose schools and care deeply about the quality of the education of all of our students. As a long time resident and homeowner I appreciate that the schools are one of the most important of our city's responsibilities."

Focus on reducing fees in tough financial times

In his 20 months on the board, LaRock led the charge on reducing the , and worked with Mayor Rob Dolan, after the mayor introduced a proposal to expand free and reduced full-day kindergarten tuition, to make full-day kindergarten free for more families than originally proposed. He also expressed a desire for Melrose to .

When asked what he was most proud of accomplishing on the board, LaRock first pointed toward the fee reductions.

"I think it was a very good thing for us as a committee to acknowledge the difficult financial times our families have been living in these past couple of years, and do something to help them," he said.

LaRock also worked on between the district's overarching Strategic Plan and more concrete goals; was a proponent of ; and of the national Common Core standards.

Student achievement and accountability

The other achievement he was most proud of, he said, is "the role I’ve played in advancing a more rigorous conversation about student achievement." Teachers and administrators who came before the School Committee often faced long periods of questioning by LaRock.

"I think that one of the reasons I feel more comfortable stepping down now is because I feel that together, as a committee, we’ve coalesced in a new way around taking the subject of student learning outcomes more seriously," LaRock said, "and deciding, as a group, to hold the superintendent and his managers more accountable for student performance."

Much of LaRock's questioning during his time on the board focused on student achievement, such as his . His sometimes blunt remarks also led to some tense moments on the board, between , and .

"I think I made certain to always ground my assertions in fact and data," he said. "I stand by all the assertions I’ve made during my time on the committee because they’ve been grounded in actual data and not just my opinion ... I think that on balance, more people understood that I was trying to advocate for the students and encourage better things for them. And so, the people who were able to understand my comments in the spirit in which they were given reacted in a more positive way. For others, it was a conversation they took longer to come around to. In some cases, they struggled coming around."

Left undone?

LaRock also sought, unsuccessfully, to change —although the committee did approve early enrollment for first grade—and to .

Despite that, he said he felt his "batting average was pretty good" and felt that more of his ideas got through than fell flat.

"I don’t feel too badly about the handful of initiatives I put forward that ultimately didn’t make it," LaRock said. "For me, that’s par for the course. You’re one voice among seven. It’s a process where compromise and letting go of certain things is part of how it works. My style was to try and put up as many good ideas as I had and see where they went."

Besides the general goals of increasing overall student achievement and improving Melrose schools, if LaRock had to pick one thing left undone, or one goal he'd like to see the committee achieve, what would it be?

"I think if the committee continues to train its focus on the types of things we’ve been discussing over the past two years, that’s the main thing," he said.

So with a move to Paris imminent, how's Jean-Daniel LaRock's French?

"I’m going to have to learn it," he said with a chuckle. "They (the OECD) use English, which is good. I’m going to have lean on my wife, who’s the French speaker in our household, to get me along in my daily life for time being."