D’Alessandro resigned before the end of her term in February to lead a $150 million research initiative on urban school leadership.

During her five-year tenure she had bolstered technical and special education in the district, but she had failed to solve the fundamental problems facing the city’s schools—and her departure left Cambridge without a merger plan or a leader to guide the district.

The Aftermath

Following D’Alessandro’s departure, the school committee tapped Deputy Superintendent Carolyn Turk to act as the district’s leader until a permanent replacement could be found.

And in April, the school committee approved a merger plan—voting to close three elementary schools and merge five others.

Although some parents and committee members remained opposed to the plan until the very end, others were persuaded by the district’s worsening financial situation and the need to take action in order to implement the changes in time for the next school year.

“We’ve allowed our educational system’s achievement gaps to last for decades,” Sullivan recently told The Crimson. “To me that was not acceptable.”

However, as a high-powered—and highly expensive—Chicago firm searched for a new superintendent to lead the district, the high school’s administration also came into question.

The appointment last summer of elementary school principal Sybil Knight to take over at the helm of CRLS, which had recently undergone drastic reorganization, was regarded as a hopeful move by many city residents.

But this spring Knight shook the confidence of Cambridge parents when she fired five of the high school’s 10 deans—including some of the school’s most popular leaders.

“These series of actions have made me feel that my vision and energy would be better appreciated elsewhere,” CRLS science teacher Tad Sudnick said in May.

But Knight maintained she needed to take charge of the school’s leadership.

“I must make some tough decisions. I need to have a leadership team that is unified around purpose. I am moving forward,” she said in May.

But parents and city officials say that CRLS still lacks vision as an educational institution.

“What do I say to the parents of a seventh or eighth grader? What is it that CRLS has to offer? I want to be able to say, ‘Come visit this year. It'll look the same next year when you send your child,’” school committee member Alice L. Turkel said in May.