Peabody School Committee members are raising the bar high as they prepare to embark on a search for Interim School Superintendent Herbert Levine’s successor.
Committee member Joseph Amico wants a superintendent who will spend 10 years running Peabody schools and Amico and fellow committee members know they face serious competition from other communities looking for superintendents.
While they deserve praise for taking a realistic approach to fill an extremely important job, committee members should ensure parents, school employees and other community members have plenty of opportunities to help structure the search for a superintendent and comment on applicants.
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To carry out this objective, the committee might consider asking the Massachusetts Association of School Committees to conduct a partial superintendent search combining the organization’s expertise with local involvement.
As committee members have indicated, Peabody has a lot riding on a successful search for a competent and committed school leader. Saugus committee members know how their Peabody counterparts feel. They endured a succession of superintendents before picking Dr. David DeRuosi to lead the town’s school system.
DeRuosi, Malden’s former superintendent, by all appearances is the leader Saugus needs to push an ambitious school construction and reorganization plan into the mid-21st century. Peabody’s next superintendent will have a wealth of resources to work with as he or she looks for ways to refocus the public school system. The brand-new Higgins Middle School is a testament to Peabody’s commitment to public education.
Middle schools in many ways have become the new focus for public schools intent on molding students with well-rounded academic, emotional and vocational skills. Dr. Catherine Latham, Lynn’s school superintendent, has famously noted how middle schools offer opportunities to keep kids in school by giving them a variety of skills designed to put their brains and their hands to good use.
It is hoped Peabody’s next superintendent will appreciate the vital role a good middle school plays in helping elementary school-age students jump from adolescence to the pre-teenage years. Middle school is where students dig deeper into academics or begin to back away from learning as a lifetime pursuit. It is where they are bombarded by family expectations, relationship explorations and gender identification even as they juggle class work and figure out who they are.
A new Higgins is a great first step to making Peabody’s school system better. Hiring a top-notch superintendent is the next step.