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EDITOR’S NOTE : This article has been updated to include a statement from Jennifer Schaeffner to the Independent on Wednesday morning.
Jennifer Schaeffner will run for Select Board in the June 9 town election, opting against a third term on the School Committee and transforming what had been a two-candidate race into a three-way contest for two seats.
At the same time, former School Committee chair Sarah Fox has pulled nomination papers for one of the two School Committee seats, positioning herself for a possible return to elected office less than a year after voters ousted both incumbents.
Those parallel moves place two familiar figures back at the center of town politics and return attention to a period of School Committee governance that ended in a decisive voter rejection.
Schaeffner, now in her second stint on the School Committee after serving from 2016 to 2020 and winning election again in June 2023, would bring nearly a decade of elected experience to the Select Board. Her entry reshapes a race that until now had drawn just two announced candidates for two open seats: incumbent Erin M. Noonan, who is seeking reelection, and Rossana Ferrante, chair of the Recreation and Park Commission.
Raised in Marblehead, Schaeffner attended Marblehead Public Schools and graduated from Wheaton College. She spent more than 22 years in the investment and banking industry before founding a North Shore residential real estate and property management business in 2004. Since 2022, she has also served as a governor-appointed commissioner on the Marblehead Housing Authority. She was a co-founder of the now-shuttered Marblehead Beacon news site.
Her candidacy comes as the Select Board confronts two of the town’s most consequential problems: a projected $7 million structural deficit in fiscal 2027 and Marblehead’s continuing conflict with the state over MBTA Communities Act compliance. Town Administrator Thatcher Kezer has outlined one budget scenario with no new revenue and deep service cuts and another pairing a household trash fee with smaller cuts. The board is also overseeing the town’s response to Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s lawsuit after voters used a 1954 special act to overturn a Town Meeting-approved zoning plan, costing Marblehead access to state grant funding. A revised zoning article is expected at spring Town Meeting.
But Schaeffner’s candidacy also carries the political record of her School Committee service. She and Fox were both members of the committee during one of the most contentious stretches in recent district history, a period marked by the 2024 contract fight with teachers, disputes over school spending and transparency, the draft flag policy and repeated turnover in district leadership.
Fox served as chair during part of that period. Schaeffner also became a central public defender of the committee’s position as those disputes unfolded, including during the November 2024 teachers strike, when she argued the district’s contract offer reflected the town’s fiscal limits.
Whatever their differences in role or style, both were part of the governing body during a period of labor conflict and administrative instability.
Voters responded decisively in June 2025. In a five-way race for two School Committee seats, both incumbents lost. Fox finished last with 649 votes, about 5 percent of the total, while fellow incumbent Alison Taylor also fell short. Kate Schmeckpeper and Henry Gwazda won by wide margins.
That result did not amount to a narrow rebuke of one candidate. It was a broader rejection of the committee’s recent direction. Fox’s possible return is therefore notable not simply because she lost, but because she is seeking to return so soon after voters turned out the incumbents tied to that governing era.
Fox first joined the School Committee in 2019 and won election to a full three-year term in 2022. During her tenure, she chaired or co-chaired the Budget Subcommittee, Facilities Committee and Collective Bargaining Subcommittee, and served on the School Building Committee during construction of the Brown School, which she has said came in under budget and ahead of schedule. Supporters described her as one of the committee’s most prepared and independent members. Critics, meanwhile, faulted her handling of contract negotiations, her approach to financial transparency and her role in several of the board’s most divisive fights.
Schaeffner’s departure from the School Committee leaves one of two seats open on the June ballot, alongside the unexpired term created when Brian Scott Ota resigned in August 2025. Melissa Marie Clucas, an appointed committee member, and Ann Marie Jordan are already listed in that race.
In an April 15 email to the Marblehead Independent, Schaeffner said Marblehead is at a “critical juncture” and argued that town leaders must confront the town’s financial problems now because “temporary patches can no longer fix” the projected structural deficit. She said she is running for Select Board because the decisions made in the coming years will determine whether Marblehead remains “affordable for our taxpayers and attractive for young families.”
Schaeffner said the town “must exhaust every avenue for efficiency” and argued that if the Select Board seeks an override, the proposal must be “simple, transparent, and detailed.” “Taxpayers should know exactly what the cost will be to them and specifically what it funds,” she wrote. She said her approach would emphasize “essentials first,” “fiscal discipline” and “managing long-term costs,” while ensuring that any override funds are managed with “total transparency.”
Fox said she is running on what she describes as a record of student advocacy, budget scrutiny and fiscal transparency. A parent with children re across every level of Marblehead Public Schools, she said that gives her a direct view of what students need and how district decisions affect families across the system.
She also criticized this year’s town budget process as lacking preparedness and transparency, arguing that the School Committee needs experienced leadership as Schaeffner steps away. With the school budget accounting for 63% of the overall town budget, Fox said she sees an emerging “void” in student-focused fiscal oversight. She said she is entering the race because she has “always had a reputation of asking questions, digging into data, and balancing students’ needs with accountability to taxpayers.”
Elsewhere on the unofficial candidate list, longtime Board of Assessors member John Kelley is not seeking reelection after 43 years on the board. Bryan G. Adams is the only candidate listed for that seat. A two-year unexpired term on the Cemetery Commission is contested between Sally Bull Sands and Rose A. McCarthy, and the moderator’s race is also contested, with Peter Jaffe challenging incumbent Jack Attridge.
Several other races appear filled but uncontested. The Board of Health has three candidates for three seats: incumbent Thomas R. McMahon, Julie B. Selbst and Kristin Elizabeth Dubay Horton. The Library Board of Trustees has two candidates for two seats: incumbent Katherine H. Barker and Gary J. Amberik. The Planning Board also has two candidates for two seats, both incumbents: Robert John Schaeffner Jr. and Marc J. Liebman. Nearly all listed Recreation and Park candidates are incumbents, as are both Water and Sewer candidates. Incumbent Matthew B. Harrington is the only candidate for light commissioner. William Louis Kuker is the only candidate for the one open Housing Authority seat.
Candidates must return completed nomination papers to the town clerk’s office by 5 p.m. April 21 to secure a place on the ballot. Marblehead voters will head to the polls June 9 to fill 24 seats across 11 elected bodies.
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