Former Boston Public Faculties Superintendent Brenda Cassellius was the runner-up to run one other main metropolis college system, this time in her house state of Minnesota.
Casellius was the acknowledged first or second alternative amongst three finalists for almost all of the seven-member Board of Training for Saint Paul Public Faculties, the second-largest college district in Minnesota, throughout a marathon session Thursday night time that ran for greater than three and a half hours.
It’s the identical district the place Cassellius started her profession as an educator, as a particular schooling paraprofessional starting in 1989.
In the end, the board voted unanimously to supply the job to a different candidate, Stacie Stanley.
Cassellius took the Boston job within the 2019 college yr after which mysteriously stepped down from her put up main the 50,000-student BPS system in June 2022, which earned her $311,711 in 2020, after she and Mayor Michelle Wu reached “a mutual decision” that she achieve this.
A Massachusetts Division of Elementary and Secondary Training issued a evaluation of BPS simply forward of Cassellius leaving the position discovering that the district “needs immediate improvement.”
Cassellius moved again to her house state of Minnesota and has most not too long ago been the CEO of Contemporary Power, a nonprofit selling clear power options in that state, in keeping with her LinkedIn profile and a biography hooked up to her candidacy.
Stanley, who was supplied the job in Saint Paul, is at present the superintendent of Edina Public Faculties, a faculty system within the western suburbs of the Twin Cities. The third finalist, Rhoda Mhiripiri-Reed, is the superintendent of Hopkins Public Faculties, one other suburban district within the space.
The suburban districts, at roughly 8,500 college students in Edina and 6,800 in Hopkins, are dwarfed by Saint Paul’s 33,000 college students — second traditionally to the bigger Twin Metropolis of Minneapolis, although present estimates present a decrease quantity.
Cassellius was seen as a robust contender all through the marathon session.
Vice Chair Uriah Ward famous that Cassellius’ huge league expertise set her aside from the opposite two candidates.
That have contains an eight-year stint because the Minnesota commissioner of schooling, which was instantly adopted by her three-year time period helming the 50,000-student BPS system. She additionally served because the “academic superintendent” at Memphis-Shelby County Faculties in Tennessee — an enormous system of 110,500 college students throughout 214 colleges.
Chair Halla Henderson stated that she noticed in Cassellius “the idea that this work should be joyful and fun.”
“I noticed,” Henderson stated, “Cassellius was also the last to leave the room. We always had to go back and say ‘Now we have to leave the kiddos,’ so I think we were always late, which is a good thing.”
And of explicit significance to the board — which shall be working the faculties on a greater than a $1 billion finances, board member Carlo Franco famous — was Cassellius’ capability to search out cash and sources for the faculties.
“I have no doubt that she will understand our budget,” Henderson stated. “I also have no doubt that she knows where the dollars are buried in both the state and federal levels.”
Board member Yusef Carrillo stated hiring Cassellius can be virtually like “adding an additional role as a lobbyist in addition to the duties of a superintendent” he stated of her expertise discovering funding.
Whereas most of the board members touted the opposite two candidate’s shut ties to the Twin Metropolis metro space, Cassellius is not any stranger to the realm herself.
“I grew up in the southeast projects of Minneapolis, near the University of Minnesota, to a single mom,” she informed the board in her interview a day forward of the decisive assembly. She stated that she took benefit of quite a few applications to assist her attain her potential as a lady, together with the native head begin program.
She got here again to the realm to serve in administrative roles in Minneapolis Public Faculties and the East Metro Integration District, the biography she submitted to the board states.
