About Jeff

Elected and Community Service

• School Committee in Arlington, 2003-present
• Town Meeting Member in Arlington, 2001-present
• Mass Association of School Committees Advocacy Committee, 2004 to present, http://www.masc.org/adv_frame.asp
• Vision 2020 Spy Pond Task Force, 2001-2004, http://www.arlington2020.org/
• Past President, Friends of Spy Pond Park
• Vice Chair, Arlington Democratic Town Committee, 2004-present

Bio

Jeff Thielman will bring a broad and unique perspective to the State Legislature.

Dedicated to his community, Jeff is currently serving his fifth year on the Arlington School Committee and has been a member of Town Meeting since 2001. He has a passion for public service and has demonstrated an uncanny ability to build coalitions with diverse groups to solve complex problems.

Jeff served as President of the Friends of Spy Pond Park for two years and led the effort to secure the funds needed to renovate the park.  The project created a beautiful space for neighbors and visitors and protected the shoreline of one of Arlington’s natural treasures. 

Jeff is admired in Arlington for his thoughtful and thorough approach to his work on the School Committee. He holds forums throughout the year with parents, grandparents and other citizens to answer questions about school and town services.

He fought to improve services for students with special needs, worked with parents to develop a uniform food allergy policy, designed a process to review components of the school department budget, helped negotiate two contracts with the local teachers union, successfully fought for more reading and math support for struggling students, lobbied for improvements in the English Language Learner program, and designed a process to oversee the district’s progress on yearly goals. 

He has devoted much of his professional life to the creation of schools and programs that help children in great need. In 1997 he was recruited to work for a new, alternative school called Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, which was designed to reach economically disadvantaged young people from Chicago’s south side. The neighborhood served by the school and where Jeff lived during his time in Chicago was challenged by a 50% high school drop out rate and dangerous gang activity. Jeff oversaw an $18 million fundraising effort, and the school gained a national reputation for a unique work-study program that engaged students in their learning, kept them in school, and motivated them to pursue higher education.

In 2000, Jeff became the Executive Director of the Cassin Educational Initiative Foundation and led the effort to establish 18 high schools modeled after the Chicago school in some of the nation’s poorest urban communities. Under his guidance the foundation has provided start-up funding for 40 NativityMiguel middle schools (see www.nativitymiguelschools.org to learn more). The two networks of schools are serving more than 8,000 young people from economically disadvantaged families in the 2007-08 school year.

To learn more about the Cristo Rey movement, please visit www.cristoreynetwork.org.  A new book about the Cristo Rey schools, More than a Dream, is being released and can be found at www.morethanadreambook.com. 

Jeff is a graduate of Boston College (1985) and Boston College Law School (1992).  From 1985 to 1989, he served as a Jesuit International Volunteer in Tacna, Peru, where he taught high school and founded the Center for the Working Child to help street children and their families. Twenty-one years after its founding, the Center continues to provide health, nutrition, education and housing services to 250 children each year. His book, Volunteer: With the Poor in Peru (Paulist Press, 1991), details the founding of the project.  To obtain Jeff’s book, please visit www.authorhouse.com.

Jeff remains fluent in Spanish and continues to raise awareness of the plight of the world’s working children.

Jeff learned the value of public service from his family.  He is the son of a public school teacher and taught for two years himself at a secondary school in Peru, South America.  His grandfather, a lifelong member of the United Auto Workers Union, served in the Connecticut Legislature for twenty years.

Jeff, his wife, Christine, a Lexington native, and their son, Aidan, live on Coolidge Road in Arlington.

Father Drinan helped guide Jeff's future

Jeff describes his background:

Jeff's work on Spy Pond:

Jeff explains why he released emails this summer:

Please help our campaign with an online contribution!