Photo: Peter Pantazopoulos (Linkedin)
Peter Pantazopoulos doesn’t know which Belmont School Committee seat he’ll be seeking at Town Election in April.
But he will be running.
“I haven’t made a decision yet if I will run for three years or one-year term,” said the Winslow Street resident in an email interview. “I plan on making that decision when I turn in my nomination papers on Feb. 12” the deadline to turn in papers to the Town Clerk.
The father of two “impressionable boys” and an 18 year resident with his wife Olga, Pantazopoulos said his run for one of the two open seats on the six-member board came about after he asked himself “how can I best serve my community.”
“I have heard parents express their passion to me surrounding the Belmont School system. As I echoed their concerns, I decided the parent’s need a voice on the School Committee that they can trust and will be transparent with them on the intentions of the committee’s decisions that we make.”
Pantazopoulos is an account executive at Weston-based Apps Associates. He matriculated at Bentley University (BA Accounting) and earned an Executive MBA from Suffolk and an MSIT from Bentley. Pantazopoulos is currently not a Town Meeting member.
Pantazopoulos’ overall philosophy on education is based on “the passion that all parents have to ensure that their children will have a proper and fulfilling education.
“I want to see all children get the preparation they need to attend a higher education. That journey may require some students to have IEPs [Individualized Education Programs] to develop their social and learning developmental skills,” he noted.
Pantazopoulos poised several questions which he believes need to be asked of and than answered by the school committee:
- Are we doing enough for those children and getting them the assistance that they need to enjoy learning and socializing with their peers?
- Are students that are on a fast track in learning getting challenged in their studies and do we have the state of the art facilities to foster that hunger to learn?
- Do we have the right class sizes and the right grade levels in each facility?
- Are we being fiscally responsible in using the taxpayer’s dollars to fund large-scale projects and are these projects being done with the voice of the parents and community members?
He also got Belmont-specific on a pair of fronts.
“Belmont will be making key decisions in the coming years with building a new 7-12 school. The committee needs someone with experience in managing complex budgets, understanding mandated, fixed and soft costs. Understanding policy and procedures and trusting compliance but verifying we are doing the right thing for the parents, children and the tax payers who are funding these projects with their hard-earned tax dollars.”
“I want to make sure we are starting school at a reasonable time and that working families have high quality after school care for their children at an affordable price,” he said.
Nomination deadline for town-wide and Town Meeting seats is Feb. 12.