CPSD Superintendent Selection Context
As the superintendent selection process comes down to the wire, I wanted to provide a little bit of a season recap so we've all got a shared understanding of the stakes.
Here are the facts as I understand them. (And — spoiler alert — here’s a deck that gets into some of the current CPSD central administration work.)
There is an economic and racial assessment gap, both district-wide and in each school (to varying degrees). That's an important background to this entire discussion, and a primary driver behind K-Lo's closure.
In many classrooms, there's a wide spectrum of fluency with the material.
As of last school year, teacher's assistants were getting yanked away from classrooms aka reallocated in order to serve as ad hoc one-on-one support for students with behavior issues. That makes it hard for teachers to differentiate material (or to know what to expect) within the classroom. I don't know how that's playing out this school year.
Within the past few years, the district implemented a shared curriculum across all schools (CKLA for ELA, Illustrative Math for math — both chosen with significant teacher input). That's the first time that ever happened. One reason behind creating a shared curriculum is that it helps to identify both strengths and needs amongst the student population. There's both good and bad faith pushback against that. Phrases like "teacher autonomy," "flexibility," and "project based learning" are doing a lot of work here. At the same time, curriculum adaptation for multilingual learners is necessary.
Additionally, there’s a narrative that families flee CPSD middle schools. While that does happen, it’s less than it used to be – and middle schools are projected to be overenrolled in the next five years.
Elementary schools, however, are projected to lose 380 students within the next five years. That’s an entire school’s worth of kids. What we should do about that is not my call — I think it’s the community’s.
May 2025 article on de facto segregation. I think it's pretty accurate.
Also?…transportation. Transportation is the cost this district pays for controlled choice aka our enrollment policy. Transportation length, by the way, is a very real opportunity cost in the lives of students. The system is expensive, it’s complicated, it’s long, we serve about 4,000 students (which includes charter & parochial school students), and we’re stuck in a contract with vendors who’ve got a monopoly on the market. We need, very, very badly, to get very creative about ways to move forward here.
Upcoming Pivot Events
Superintendent search
Thursday, September 25, 5:30 - 8:30PM: Each candidate will have an individual 45-minute session to answer a series of pre-selected questions submitted by the greater Cambridge community. Childcare will be provided. Questions must have been submitted in advance. Attendees will not be able to ask questions live.
Tuesday, September 30 (Time TBD): Finalists will participate in interviews with the School Committee. All interviews will be open to the public and will be broadcast live.
Monday, October 6: School Committee vote to select new superintendent.
MCAS
Late September: FY24 - 25 MCAS results
March 23 - Apr 17: G3 - 8 ELA testing window
April 27 - May 22: G3 - 8 Math testing window
April 27 - May 22: G3 - 8 STE testing window
April 26 - June 5: G8 Civics testing window
Budget cycle
October 2025: Superintendent meeting w/City Manager
September 2025 - December 2025: Historically, budget policy analysis and maneuvering with some public input
December 2025 - March 2026: Budget creation
March 2026: Budget review
April 2026: Budget approval
Election
Oct 25 - Nov 4: Voting
Jan 1: New members take office. (Out of curiosity...do they get trained between Nov 4 & Jan 1?)
CEA/union negotiations
Negotiations to be concluded by August 2026; new contract begins September 1, 2026.
Leadership vacancies
In house counsel
Director of family engagement
Thanks very much, and more soon —
—amc
