Short list emerges for school chief
Committee is said to pick five candidates for Boston's top job
Boston has narrowed its search for the next superintendent of schools to a list of five candidates, all career educators with experience in urban schools, several sources close to the search said yesterday.
The candidates, four women and one man, include the first Hispanic superintendent of Rochester, N.Y., who was the 2006 national superintendent of the year; a former Milton superintendent; and the outgoing superintendent of San Francisco schools who was that system's first woman and first African-American leader.
The 12-member search committee, which conducted its last interviews with candidates yesterday, met behind closed doors to select the five, all of whom have met with the search committee in recent weeks.
For the next step, a private search consultant will ask the five contenders if they want to pursue the job in the final round, which would require that they meet with assorted community groups in public forums during a two-day visit to the city. The public process may deter candidates, the sources said, and more names may be added if that occurs.
The list of candidates who agree to be finalists will then be submitted to the School Committee, which will make the ultimate selection. The panel had originally hoped to make its selection by Friday, when Superintendent Thomas W. Payzant retires, but will miss that deadline.
The committee did not make the names public last night. But the sources said that those in the running to replace Payzant are:
Arlene Ackerman, outgoing superintendent of San Francisco Unified School District.
Nancy J. McGinley, chief academic officer of Charleston County School District in South Carolina.
Mary Grassa O'Neill, a former Milton superintendent and former Boston schools administrator who now works at Harvard training principals.
Manuel J. Rivera, superintendent of Rochester City School District.
Deborah A. Sims, chief of K-12 operations in San Francisco schools and a protege of Ackerman.
The search committee includes educators, parents, School Committee members, and business and community leaders. The committee, which began reviewing more than 100 nominees and applicants for the job in March, is pleased with the experiences and backgrounds of the remaining candidates, sources said.
The panel has been especially interested in someone who can accelerate academic improvements begun by Payzant, but can connect with parents and community members in a way that Payzant did not.
While two of the candidates on the list of five had previously balked at the plan to require them to submit to public interviews, Mayor Thomas M. Menino and School Committee chairwoman Elizabeth Reilinger have insisted that the city would proceed with the public process. Those who will not agree to participate will then have to drop out, sources said.
The selection is a critical decision for Menino, who has been struggling with departures of key personnel. Parents have been lobbying for a superintendent with the ability to boost the achievement of black and Hispanic students, who make up the overwhelming majority of Boston's students.
The list of five is deep with experience.
Ackerman, who plans to start teaching education this fall at Columbia University's Teachers College, has won acclaim for cutting budgets and raising test scores at failing schools in both Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.
Grassa O'Neill's name arose as a possible contender for the Boston superintendent's job in 1995, before Payzant was selected. At the time, Menino would not confirm she was considered, but he told the Globe: ``I love her. I think she's great."
She spent more than 25 years in Boston schools before leaving for Milton in 1993. There, Grassa O'Neill led a campaign to raise millions to renovate or replace several school buildings in the nearly 4,000 student district. She took early retirement from Milton in 2003.
Rivera is leading Rochester schools for the second time and has developed a reputation as a healer and reformer in a city with a politically fractured school board.
After three years as Rochester's superintendent in the early 1990s, he left for eight years to participate in a highly publicized national experiment:
Rivera, who began his career as an elementary teacher in Rochester, was named national superintendent of the year by the American Association of School Administrators for raising student achievement.
McGinley, though never a superintendent, has become known for quickly reforming troubled schools as a principal and in higher-level positions.
As a principal in Philadelphia, she helped one of the lowest-performing middle schools rise to one of the top five schools in the system within three years. In March, she was one of two finalists for the Cleveland superintendent's post.
Sims, never a superintendent, oversees 28 elementary and middle schools in San Francisco and works with dozens of other schools.
She has been groomed to handle a top job in a school system through the Broad Academy, a 10-month executive management program.
Grassa O'Neill, Sims, McGinley, and Ackerman could not be reached last night.
Rivera, in a brief telephone interview, confirmed that he had met with the search committee, but said that he was merely consulting with members about the role of the superintendent and that he did not apply for the position.
A phone call to Boston public schools spokesman Jonathan Palumbo was not returned last night.
Maria Sacchetti can be reached at msacchetti@globe.com; Tracy Jan at tjan@globe.com. 
