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‘Progressive’ City Council abuses vulnerable persons—and free speech
Schuster: prepare kids for the long term
East Cambridge Property
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Surprise win for Fowler-Finn
Cambridge's school superintendent holds on to his job—for now—by one vote
Dr Thomas Fowler-Finn [photo: Catherine Hammond]
After each local election, Cambridge city councilors choose a mayor from among themselves. This is largely a ceremonial position. But the mayor also sits on the school committee.
People of color make up a majority of Cambridge’s public school enrollment, yet for the first time since 1955, the elected school committee is exclusively white.
So it was good that they chose Denise Simmons to be mayor: parent and grandparent, former school committee member, and woman of color whose core constituency is low-income residents.
This election marked another watershed. For decades, the so-called Independents always held either four or five of the nine city council seats. Their basic constituency was in among predominantly white working-class voters. Suddenly there are only two of those "Independents"—David Maher and Tim Toomey.
The defining question in the recent school committee election was the current school superintendent, Thomas Fowler-Finn: Should He Stay Or Should He Go?
The six elected members were evenly divided. Three were for him and three against. Simmons had often expressed her opposition to him. You would think the superintendent would be looking for a new job by now.
Yet when she took her seat on the school committee, Simmons voted to begin negotiating a new contract with Fowler-Finn. It is said that this change of position was the price of securing the votes of city councilors Henrietta Davis and Brian Murphy, who became mayor after they switched to support for Simmons. Both Davis and Murphy want to keep the superintendent.
This scenario presumes that, in switching their votes to Simmons, Davis and Murphy were not primarily motivated by their desire to see a working-class woman of color on the school committee.
This is not supposed to happen under the Plan E charter. In Cambridge, the city council is not supposed to have a vote in the hiring and firing of school superintendents.