About Sean
My name is Sean Kennedy, and I’ve proudly called Wilbraham home for the past 14 years. I currently work at Amazon Logistics in Holyoke. My wife of 19 years, Liliya, is an Emergency Room nurse at Baystate and also serves as a traveling nurse at other hospitals. Our daughter, Sasha, is pursuing her Doctorate in Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and our son, Nicholas, is a 7th grader at Wilbraham Middle School. We’re grateful to be part of such a strong, supportive community and school district.
For the past nine years, I’ve had the honor of serving on the School Committee for the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District. During my time on the Committee, I’ve served on both the Budget & Finance Subcommittee and the Negotiations Subcommittee. I also served as President of the Lower Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative for four years and have been a member of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) Legislative Committee since 2023.
This year marks one of the most complex and challenging budget cycles I’ve encountered in my tenure. With rising inflation, ongoing negotiations with all three school unions, updates underway to the Regional School Agreement between Wilbraham and Hampden, uncertainty surrounding more than $1 million in federal grant funding, and the potential for a Proposition 2½ override, we face significant financial hurdles. These challenges have only deepened my commitment to serve and to do the hard work needed to protect and enhance the future of our schools.
Looking ahead, I want to focus on what the future of education should look like in our district. This includes exploring innovative instructional methods and identifying alternative funding strategies to help sustain and strengthen our schools. While the residents of Wilbraham and Hampden have been consistently generous in their support of the school budget, it’s clear we must develop creative approaches to ease the burden on taxpayers while continuing to improve the quality and effectiveness of the education we provide.
It would be a privilege to continue serving this community and to help shape a strong educational and fiscal path forward for the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District.