Cambridge Superintendant of Schools William C. Lannon will not be among those returning to school when the first bell rings next fall. After nine years at the helm of the 14 school, 8000-student system. Lannon has been dismissed by the Cambridge School Committee, and he will leave office when his current contract expires on August 15.

Lannon's tenure in office has been described by one teacher as "a series of crises after crises." Between 1975 and 1984, the Cambridge schools have come to grips with budget cutbacks resulting from the tax-cutting bill Proposition 2 1/2 with the upheaval surrounding the system's reorganization and desegregation, and with the controversies spawned by affirmative action proposals.

But in the same period, the city's only high school. Cambridge Rindge and Latin, has gone from a dilapidated, crumbling building--with a curriculum in far worse shape than its physical structure--to "a school we can hold our heads high over," as School Committee member Frances Cooper describes it. Attendance and test scores have improved across the board as well, and a series of special programs and "magnet schools" provide educational alternatives for every type of student.

The role that Lannon played in the changes has been the subject of much debate in recent months, as the school committee deliberated his fate in a series of public hearings in January and February.

Parents and administrators generally supported Lannon. The system is losing someone with a lot of courage in dealing with controversial situations and with a rate capacity to translate creative ideas into programs that work," says Diane Tabor. Rindge and Latin's assistant principal. "The rest of the world is laughing at us--it's like telling Larry Bird not to play basketball."

Still, despite widespread support. Lannon stepped on a few toes in making his changes, and some of them belonged to members of the school committee, the group of six elected representatives and the Cambridge mayor which determines over all school department policy and appoints all personnel.

"Lannon was just using the city to climb in his political career," says Glenn S. Koocher '71, the leader of the anti-Lannon contingent. "He catered to certain constituencies, the powerful ones, and left the poorer neighborhoods to take care of themselves," Koocher adds.

But both supporters and opponents agree that Lannon was instrumental in the numerous structural and curricular reforms that made the Cambridge schools what spokesman Albert Giroux calls "a model for urban education in the rest of the country."

While Boston dealt with anti-busing riots and racial turbulence when court-ordered desegregation started in 1978, nearby Cambridge gained nationwide recognition as one of the few communities to desegregate its schools voluntarily, without a mandate from the courts. The three-year process, completed in 1981, of evenly spreading minority students, who are 40 percent of the school's population, throughout the 13 elementary schools, has "worked out well," according to Giroux.

Instead of automatically registering their children in a neighborhood school, Cambridge parents apply to a central office which then makes school assignments. Demographics primarily determine the assignments, although the child's neighborhood and the parents' preference are also taken into account. Each family lists three choices of schools, and administrators try to give them their first choice.

Parents also have the option to request one of the several "magnet schools," which draw children from all over the city. The Graham-Parks School offers multi-grade open classrooms with an emphasis on parent involvement in forming school policy. "The Open School" at mid-Cambridge's Martin Luther King School stresses "individualized academic creativity," according to a school department brochure.

The newest magnet school, which opened its doors in September, incorporates computers into all aspects of the academic curriculum. Local business, universities and the federal government contributed funds and resources to set up the experimental program. "I hate to keep saying this, but it is a model," says Giroux. Secretaries at the school even answer phones, "School of the Future, can I help you?"

But some parents have complained about the lack of access to computer facilities for their children in other schools. Giroux says, however, that the new computer school provides workshops in computer education to teachers employed at other Cambridge schools, and that several computer companies have given the system samples of their wares, which are being set up on a city wide basis.

"Magnet schools give teachers the opportunity to upgrade their craft, and to influence the system at large," says Tabor. School committee member Rena H. Leib calls the diverse programs "a recognition that different kids learn in different ways."

"If you look at any school in Cambridge, it is pretty well integrated in terms of bodies," says Cooper, adding. "But the administration and teaching staff is much less integrated, and we're going to have to deal with this very soon." Administrators say only 14 percent of the teachers in Cambridge are Blacks, and they are concentrated in several schools such as the King School, with high minority enrollments.