Top positions vacant at BPS press office

The top two roles expected to be filled ‘in a few weeks’

Questions from the press are flying into Boston Public Schools on topics from the threat of state takeover to the apocalyptically bad independent report about a pilot school now set to be shut down — but the top two press contacts have left in recent weeks.

Jonathan Palumbo, the BPS head of communications, headed out a few weeks ago, leaving for the state. Press Secretary Sharra Gaston alerted reporters on Friday that she has moved to a different position within the district.

Asked if there’s going to be a problem informing the public in this crucial juncture for the district, the remaining lower-level flaks said, “The transitions occurring within the BPS Communications Department were well-known before now, and have also been planned for. The district has extended offers to two people who will be starting on the team in a few weeks.”

These are busy and largely thankless jobs handling press for the beleaguered school district that’s been institutionally opaque for years. The gigs do pay well, though, with the last comms chief making north of $165,000 and press secretary more than $100,000.

The daily papers, TV stations and other media outlets have all been on the slow-burn story of the looming threat of state receivership, which would mean the governor’s administration appointing someone to take control of the struggling district.

Then there’s the longerterm intractable problems of declining enrollment, yawning achievement gaps across racial and geographic lines and violence in the schools.

Just this week, there was a horrifying report alleging mismanagement and the brushing aside of bulling and sexual misconduct at the Mission Hill Pilot K-8 School that has led to Superintendent Brenda Cassellius — who herself is only in this job until the summer, as the district searches for a new superintendent — calling for it to close. That matter will be decided this coming week.

And at the end of this past week, the Condon K-8 School in South Boston was the subject of two different police reports, first when someone handed out fliers with a swastika and multiple staff members’ faces on them, and then the next day a teacher found a live .45 caliber bullet in a toilet at the school.