The three finalists vying for superintendent of the Cambridge Public Schools were announced Monday amid a controversial selection process that led the Cambridge Education Association and others to call for a restart.
The three finalists are David Murphy, Lourenço Garcia and Magaly Sanchez.
Murphy is the interim superintendent of Cambridge Public Schools; Garcia is assistant superintendent and chair of the Equity Advisory Board for Revere Public Schools; and Sanchez is the chief family advancement officer for Boston Public Schools.
A School Committee vote to select one is scheduled for Oct. 6, ending a lengthy and fraught search that saw one semifinalist candidate disqualified and called into question the legitimacy of the district’s search process.
“Finalists were recommended based on top choices made by interview team members, composed of School Committee members, CPS educators, CPS caregivers, community members and a CRLS student representative,” according to a district press release, referring at the end to the city’s public high school, the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School.
Leading the search process as head of the committee, mayor E. Denise Simmons said Tuesday with other members of her team that there were four finalists undergoing reference checks.
Member Elizabeth Hudson said that she’d heard from people in other school districts as a result of those reference checks who asked her: “What on earth are you thinking?” – apparently a comment about to Adam Taylor, once superintendent of Rutland City Public Schools in Vermont, who came to wider public attention in 2019 when he spoke at a Black History Month college event and compared teachers to “pimps” and pedophile priests in a “foul analogy.”
Taylor told The Harvard Crimson on Wednesday that he took part in semifinalist interviews but was informed he was not a finalist; he told Cambridge Day the next day that “I haven’t heard anything regarding my being a finalist.”
The superintendent finalists
Among the three finalists announced Monday:
Murphy was appointed interim superintendent in June 2024 after the School Committee ousted Victoria Greer from the superintendent’s office that May. Before his appointment as interim superintendent, Murphy served as the school district’s chief operating officer, overseeing all its noninstructional areas such as school assignment policy revision and newcomer student support.
Murphy has also acted as assistant superintendent for Medford Public Schools, deputy superintendent and labor counsel for the Boston Public Schools, and earlier in his career, served as a middle school substitute teacher. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Fordham University and a law degree from Boston College Law School.
Garcia, as assistant superintendent of Revere Public Schools since 2020, has led districtwide initiatives in equity and inclusion related to equity audits, culturally responsive curriculum and multilingual learner advocacy. Before his tenure as assistant superintendent, Garcia served as principal of Woonsocket High School and became Revere High School principal in 2010. He holds dual bachelor’s degrees, a master’s degree from Cape Verde and a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
Sanchez, appointed chief family advancement officer for Boston Public Schools in 2023, leads district and school family engagement and enrollment strategies and oversees inclusive summer learning and acceleration programs for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Previously, she served as curriculum, data and assessment manager for New Bedford Public Schools and as a founding principal in Providence Public Schools. Sanchez holds a bachelor’s degree from Providence College and a master’s degree in education from the University of Rhode Island.
The rest of the process
Ahead of the Oct. 6 vote, Cambridge will host additional listening sessions next week; committee members will visit candidates’ school districts the week of Sept. 15; and community members will have “opportunities to meet the candidates” the week of Sept. 22, according to a district press release.
Finalist interviews are scheduled for Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, and “will be broadcast live and will be open to the public, though public comment will not be included,” CPS said in their announcement.
School committee meetings are livestreamed here, and more updates can be found at cpsd.us.
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It will be interesting to see if the outside candidates address the critical aspect of the public schools, rather than DEI and social justice.
Students have to learn to read, write and do math at grade level. They have to realize that if they cannot, they will be left back.
That’s what this school system needs. We can’t let another generation of students fail in the requisites needed to become productive adults.
If I didn’t know any better I’d say the two candidates from outside Cambridge are just window-dressing for the lead candidate, who clearly is Murphy. He’s done a good job, he has deep operational experience the district needs, and the teachers approve of him.
Let’s not make this more complicated than it needs to be, Cambridge does enough of that already.
Did we, the parents, get a say in whether or not it was good idea to outsource the choice for superintendent to a group called the Equity Process? Who decided upon this, and why? As far as I can tell from their website is their only criteria for choosing a superintendent is:
‘We intentionally center the voices and lived experiences of students who continue to face marginalization because of their race, heritage, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, religion, gender, disability, age, or any combination of these identities.’
So, does this mean we aren’t choosing a superintendent to ensure our children learn, but one who wants to make sure we hold special assemblies so everyone feels loved? Are we trying to foster an environment that is no more than glorified daycare? I am just very confused as to what criteria we are using, and I’m not sure I am alone.
As I’ve said before, you are correct.
“So, does this mean we aren’t choosing a superintendent to ensure our children learn, but one who wants to make sure we hold special assemblies so everyone feels loved?”
Yup.
With three generations of students, this city still hasn’t learned its lesson. The only thing the CPS should be doing is ensuring that the students learn to read, write and do math at grade level.
Why is this so difficult to understand? Social justice, and the like, comes after giving the students an education that they deserve.
Why can’t all the school committee members come out and say those simple words?