Search panel named to find new superintendent
Mayor Thomas M. Menino and the School Committee named a seven-member search committee yesterday to find a new school superintendent, with the mayor saying he hoped the group would get a new leader in place by the start of the next school year.
Menino, who helped name the group a month after the first pick, Manuel J. Rivera, abruptly pulled out, said that the process would be confidential and that the committee would consider names that surfaced during the last search, as well as new ones. School officials said they expected to start interviewing candidates next month.
"I have faith in the search committee," Menino said. "I'm not going to allow this to become a political process. This is going to be a process to find the best educator for Boston."
City councilors, public advocates, and others have pushed for greater openness in the search process since the deal with Rivera unraveled last month. The City Council held a hearing last night to discuss issues in the search .
The new search committee has a mix of members, from a pastor who is also on the School Committee to a sociology professor and parents. It includes five people from the previous committee as well as new faces. But it has five fewer members than the committee that chose Rivera and no longer includes a representative of the Boston Teachers Union.
Cleve Killingsworth, a cochairman during the last search, will now lead the search with the Rev. Gregory G. Groover Sr., a new School Committee member. Killingsworth is president and chief executive of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Groover is pastor of the Charles Street AME Church.
Menino said he wanted the process to remain confidential to avoid losing top-notch candidates who might be unwilling to broadcast that they are considering another job. Other school systems nationally are taking a similar approach, he said.
Groover, who also served on the previous search committee, said that the new committee would try to find ways for the public to weigh in, as long as it didn't mean that a stellar candidate would drop out.
"We're very sensitive to the community, to what people are saying," Groover said.
But Councilor at Large Michael F. Flaherty said yesterday that the final two to four candidates' names should be released to allow the public to participate in the process. He said the school system could give the finalists enough time to alert their school systems that they are being considered for another job.
"The prospective new superintendent needs to recognize that this is public service," Flaherty said. "There should be a public vetting."
The first search, conducted by a 12-member committee named in December 2005, ended when Rivera was named superintendent in September. He was expected to take over in July.
Instead, Rivera gave up the Boston job to become deputy secretary for education in New York state. Three of his confidants said Rivera withdrew partly because of School Committee chairwoman Elizabeth Reilinger's strong role in the school system and his perception that she was exerting authority over personnel and other issues. Rivera said Reilinger was not the main reason he withdrew.
But the brouhaha led Reilinger to relinquish control of the new search; four councilors and others had urged her to step aside. She will serve as a member of the search committee.
The remaining members of the search committee include Robert A. Brown, president of Boston University, and Klare Shaw, a parent and senior associate with the Boston-based Barr Foundation, devoted primarily to education and the environment; both served on the previous committee. New members are Jorge Martinez, director of Project RIGHT, a Boston nonprofit focused on youth violence and other issues, and Miren Uriarte, a sociology professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and director of the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy.
No School Committee members attended the meeting. Anthony Smith, executive secretary to the Boston School Committee, blamed members' absence on work, family responsibilities, and jury duty, among other issues, a copy of a letter sent to council members before the meeting said.
"I think it's disrespectful to the City Council," said one of four people who testified at the hearing, Samuel Hurtado, a coordinator for the Latino Education Action Network.
Myriam Ortiz, assistant director of the Boston Parent Organizing Network, called the absence of School Committee members "typical."
But she said she hopes the new search committee will be more transparent than the previous one. "There's a lot more pressure now," said Ortiz, who also testified.
Mary Ann Hardenbergh, founder of Community Partners for a New Superintendent, said she understood the search process may not be public at the start.
"I worry about the transparency at the end," said Hardenbergh, who also testified. "The finalists should be publicized if the process is to be transparent."
