After learning one of the candidates for superintendent compared educators to “pimps” and students to prostitutes, the Cambridge Education Association is demanding the Cambridge School Committee halt its superintendent search. This year, the committee began an opaque, undemocratic and costly process to identify the next superintendent for Cambridge Public Schools. This process has left educators and the public in the dark. The association sees this faulty process as just the latest in a long line of failed hiring processes for superintendents, upper management and principals in the district, many of whom have caused harm to scholars, caregivers and educators.
In this week’s committee meeting no member other than Elizabeth Hudson, who called for increased transparency, said or did anything to answer the community’s legitimate concerns and completely failed to answer the question of how the finalists were chosen.
If Cambridge Public Schools and The Equity Process were not aware of the candidate’s comments, this is nothing short of gross negligence and incompetence. If the district and its consultant were aware, this is a callous and calculated decision to present a false choice to the Cambridge community. Our community deserves school leaders who lift students and educators up, not tear them down with crude, harmful analogies. This process has lost all credibility and must stop now.
The CEA calls into question the validity of the nationwide exhaustive candidate search. We call into question the contracting of The Equity Process and demand transparency on why certain applications were considered and advanced. We call into question whether this secretive and costly process was all intended to simply present a false choice to the larger Cambridge Public Schools community. We call into question the district’s commitment to racial justice and social equity. Cambridge Public Schools deserves better.
It is clear we need to elect new School Committee members on Nov. 4. The association invites the entire Cambridge community to join us for an educator-hosted School Committee candidate forum at 6 pm Sept. 10 at the the Cambridge Main Library, 449 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge, to hear directly from all of the candidates. Cambridge caregivers, scholars and staff deserve leaders they can trust and respect.
Chris Montero, president of the Cambridge Education Association
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