Pietro Cicolini is a new addition to the City of Malden School Committee. He is the Ward One School Committee Member. He has lived in Malden all his life and is “a proud graduate of Malden High School, class of 1997.” He then went on to Suffolk University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy and Administration. He also enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves in 2000, where he was later activated and deployed to Iraq in 2004. He then applied to Suffolk Law School while in Iraq; Cicolini was accepted and attended night classes. During this time, he had been working full time at the Immigration Court in Boston. Cicolini graduated from Suffolk in 2009, and now works for a federal judge in the U.S. District Court.
Cicolini’s decision to run for office had been a difficult decision for him to make. He says, “for any responsibilty you accept, [he] [believes] you must do it to the best of your ability.” If he wanted to run for office, he wanted to be a position that he knew that he could fully dedicate himself to. Being a father made his decision more clear: since his children would soon be a part of the Malden Public School System, the School Committee was the right position for him. Education is an important factor of everybody’s life, and it was something that Cicolini cared about.
When Jen Cabral had decided not to run again for Ward One, Cicolini had decided it was the right time to run. Now that it has been three months, he has been attending all the scheduled meetings and responding to parents when he can; it is clear he is doing his best to everything he possibly can.
Cicolini is also a member of the Technology Student Services Subcommittee, and he is looking to upgrade the schools’ computers, possibly have Ipads and would like to have the schools put on a better network. He sees that the growth in population in the lower grades are increasing, which will drastically affect Malden students. The teachers will have to teach more students, but with less amount of resources. He says, “the school committee will need to work hard to come up with creative ways to serve this group.”
As for getting involved in the schools, Cicolini is looking to attend events held at the Ferryway School and plans to go to others at MHS and other K-8 schools. He believes that “meeting staff and students and seeing the buildings will help me understand the district better,” and that will result in him making better decisions for the whole district.
