ADVICE FROM FORMER BPS LEADERS
The Shah Family Foundation on Tuesday released the first episodes of a limited-series podcast that includes interviews with outgoing Boston Public Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius and some of her predecessors about the search for a new superintendent.
Called “Last Night at School Committee: The Search for A New Boston Superintendent” the podcast series includes interviews with Cassellius, Laura Perille, Tommy Chang, John McDonough, Carol Johnson and Michael Contompasis about the opportunities and challenges of the job, and their advice for the next superintendent.
“As Boston embarks on a search for a new school superintendent, there’s a citywide conversation happening about the future of Boston Public Schools, so we invited key stakeholders from across the city to share their thoughts on what will make a successful district leader,” said Ross Wilson, executive director of the Shah Family Foundation.
“We put it all together into a special series of our ‘Last Night at School Committee’ podcast, with insights from nearly two dozen leaders,” Wilson said. “We hope the series helps elevate this important conversation about our students’ future, and we hope our listeners enjoy it as much as we did.
In her interview for the series, Cassellius said she was “extremely excited” to come to Boston from Minnesota, where she was commissioner of education.
But she also heard that politics had a way of seeping into the Hub’s school district, partly because the superintendent was appointed by the mayor, who was Martin J. Walsh at the time and is Michelle Wu now.
Within weeks of being sworn in, Wu came to a “mutual agreement” with Cassellius that the superintendent would step down on June 30 after only three years on the job. The break came with costs of $314,000 in severance, as well as $75,000 to hire a search firm to find her replacement.
One of the lessons Cassellius said she learned was that as superintendent, “you try to take what’s good and make it better.”
When she arrived on the job, she found that the conditions of facilities were deplorable,” she found that most schools had no playgrounds or libraries, things she hopes her successor will continue her work on.
Cassellius also said she had concerns about “autonomous” schools, one of which — the Mission Hill School — is closing in June because of allegations of students-on-student bullying and sexual abuse.
Former Superintendent Chang said people need to give the new superintendent time, so that s/he can create the right team and then delegate certain responsibilities to each of them.
Laura Perille, who served as interim superintendent after Chang left and before Cassellius arrived, said the role is to “stabilize and keep the good things going,” to problem-solve both the known and the unpredictable and to try to move the district forward.
A new episode of the podcast is being added daily to https://www.bostonsuperintendent.com.