Thursday, 4:30 PM
Rivera bows out as Boston schools superintendent
(File photo by Phil Matt/Getty Images for the Boston Globe.)
Manuel J. Rivera is no longer heading to Boston to be the city’s next superintendent of schools.
By Donovan Slack and Tracy Jan, Globe Staff
A deal announced with great fanfare to bring Manuel J. Rivera to Boston as superintendent of schools has collapsed, outraging the mayor and sending the city's search back to the drawing board.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who had held up Rivera's hiring as evidence his administration is making big strides in education, received the news at a mayors' summit in Washington, D.C., and planned to return to Boston early to "assess where we go from here."
"I'm very disappointed that Superintendent Rivera is not coming to the city," Menino said. "This was a shock to me as mayor. We were not prepared for this."
The school committee said Rivera reversed his decision to take the job and is contemplating another offer in his home state of New York.
Rivera was not immediately available for comment.
In September, city officials announced the selection of Rivera as Boston's superintendent. Rivera, the Rochester schools superintendent, would have become Boston's first Hispanic superintendent and had planned to start next July.
Rivera was expected to sign a contract, which would outline his salary and benefits, with Boston sometime this month or in early February.
Getting Rivera to agree to be a candidate was a struggle for the Boston School Committee from the start. He had continually insisted he was not a candidate throughout the search. A cloak of secrecy enveloped the final round of the search last summer as school committee members worked to sign Rivera, who was recognized as a national superintendent of the year and known for his reform efforts in Rochester.
Menino said he is confident in the leadership of Superintendent Michael G. Contompasis, the school system's former Chief Operating Officer who succeeded Thomas W. Payzant last summer while Boston continued looking for a permanent replacement.
Rivera did not contact the mayor directly. School Committee Chairwoman Elizabeth Reilinger received a letter via Fed Ex on Tuesday around noon from Rivera, indicating that he had received a "very attractive and once in a lifetime offer, and it would be unlikely he would be coming to Boston," said Reilinger in a phone interview.
Rivera told her in a subsequent phone conversation that he had received another offer in his home state of New York two weeks ago.
Reilinger said the school committee would conduct a new search, led by the executive search firm Hamilton, Rabinovitz and Alschuler, which conducted the last search and is also leading the search for a new Rochester schools superintendent to replace Rivera.
Reilinger said lawyers for the Boston School Committee and Rivera were in the process of negotiating a contract, and that was not a reason for Rivera's resignation.
"He has not identified that as an issue at all," she said. "Contract issues were proceeding along. We weren't in disagreement. We were just working out language things."
But Domingo Garcia, chairman of the Rochester School Board and a confidante of Rivera's, said Rivera had indicated to him two weeks ago that he was having trouble negotiating a contract.
"I just happened to ask him how it was going and he mentioned he was having some difficulties. He was never able to negotiate a contract with these people, and he was fed up," said Garcia, in a phone interview from the Dominican Republic, where he was traveling on business.
Garcia, who has been out of the country since last weekend, said Rivera never discussed specific points of contention with Boston. The two last spoke last Thursday during a school board meeting.
"Obviously he wasn't able to negotiate the kind of contract he wanted so he backed out," Garcia said.
Rivera, via a spokeswoman, had denied to the Globe he was backing out when rumors first surfaced two weeks ago. He was in the process of drafting a plan for Boston and was traveling to Boston every few weeks to meet with his new staff.
"There is no truth to the rumor," he had said through his spokeswoman, but declined to comment about contract negotiations.
