New chief of schools may be in the wings
Exit in N.Y. state stirs speculation
Boston has settled on Rochester , N.Y., schools Superintendent Manuel J. Rivera as the next schools chief, according to the chairman of the Rochester school board, who spoke to Rivera yesterday.
Rivera will hold a news conference announcing his resignation from the Rochester post this morning.
Boston is then expected to name Rivera as the sole superintendent candidate, said Domingo Garcia , president of the Rochester Board of Education.
``The only thing that I can confirm is that the Boston Public Schools system is going to announce that he's the sole candidate tomorrow," Garcia said last night. Rivera will retire from Rochester at the end of the school year, Garcia said.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino did not return calls last night seeking comment on whether Rivera was the city's choice.
If appointed, Rivera, the 2006 national Superintendent of the Year, would become Boston's first Hispanic superintendent. He did not respond to calls seeking comment yesterday.
Rivera, 54, has led the 35,000-student Rochester school system for seven years -- in two stints, first in the early 1990s and again since 2002.
He is known for his charisma and his ability to connect with parents and community organizers, as well as with business leaders, a contrast with the understated Thomas W. Payzant, who led Boston Public Schools for 11 years and retired in June.
Michael Contompasis, formerly Boston schools' chief operating officer, is serving as interim superintendent until the end of the school year.
In the last official statement about the search, in July, school system officials said they hoped to name a new group of finalists by the end of summer and present the candidates to the public in September, and ultimately choose a new superintendent by January.
They did not make it clear when a new superintendent would begin.
Sources involved in the search reiterated yesterday that Rivera has been a leading contender since June.
In June, the 12-member search committee, which consisted of three School Committee members and community and business leaders, selected Rivera and four others as the top candidates . The intention was for the School Committee to name them as finalists, but the process dissolved after four of the five top candidates, including Rivera, dropped out of the race.
At the time, Rivera said he was not a candidate, and had met with the search committee just to advise them on the search.
But Boston officials never stopped pursuing Rivera, sources say.
The sources said yesterday they were encouraged by the news of Rivera's resignation, but worried how the community would react if the School Committee presented one finalist rather than at least three. The search committee has not met since June, and it had expected to name at least three finalists to the School Committee, members said.
City officials have promised they would present finalists to the community during public forums, as was done when Payzant was selected in 1995.
``He is the kind of candidate that the community would get behind," one committee member said of Rivera. ``He certainly fit the bill of not only what the committee was looking for, but also what the community was looking for."
Sources involved in the search have said in the past that Rivera had been resistant to public interviews.
Since June, the only contender officially remaining was Nancy J. McGinley, chief academic officer of Charleston County schools in South Carolina. McGinley said last night that she has not heard from the search consultant for about a month, and intends to drop out of the running.
``I definitely am pulling out because of the whole protracted nature of the search," McGinley said. ``I certainly have had the time to consider some other options and right now, I'm happy staying working in Charleston County."
She said the search consultant had e-mailed her a month ago to say there would be a public process.
If chosen, Rivera would come with experience in a school system with many of Boston's traits, though Rochester is a little more than half the size of the Boston school system. Rochester, like Boston, is a high-poverty urban school system whose predominantly black and Hispanic students struggle to catch up academically to their white counterparts.
Rivera has been praised nationally for helping to increase graduation rates and student achievement. Like Payzant, he has led many innovations, including the creation of small high schools. This fall, he attempted to tackle the deeper issues of social dysfunction and created a ``children's zone" in a poor section of Rochester marked by the lowest student achievement. Schools in that area of the city will work cooperatively with families, as well as with healthcare, welfare, housing, public safety and other social service agencies.
Rivera, who grew up poor, was raised in New London, Conn. A scholar and an athlete through high school, he attended Brandeis University and majored in urban studies. He earned his master's and doctorate degrees in education from Harvard University.
Rivera began his career in Rochester as a teacher, rising to principal and in 1991, to superintendent. He left the school system in 1994 to work for
During his interim year, Rivera attempted to fix struggling middle schools by redesigning elementary schools to serve kindergarten through sixth grades, and high schools to serve seventh through 12th grades.
Last year, he risked the reputation of the system's most stellar high school, a magnet school that specializes in science and technology, by combining it with one of the city's worst schools.
Rochester is known nationally for its progressive relationship between management and the teachers' union. While Rivera sparred with the union president during his first term, they now consider each other friends. The union has allowed Rivera to move some of the city's top teachers into the most struggling schools.
Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com. 