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The campaign to fire Graham & Parks Elementary School Principal Kathleen M. Smith has divided parents at the school ahead of a Sunday deadline for Cambridge Public School leadership to notify Smith about whether her contract will be renewed.
For months, an anonymous group of parents called the G&P Caregiver Coalition has accused Smith of fostering a toxic workplace environment and failing to communicate with parents. Last week, the coalition published an open letter in the Cambridge Day demanding that district leaders fire Smith.
But the coalition itself came under fire on Thursday in an email from a second anonymous group called “Caregivers and Children of Color at Graham and Parks School” to members of the School Committee and CPS Superintendent Victoria L. Greer. A representative said the group contained around 20 parents, though The Crimson was unable to independently verify the group’s membership.
The email comes amid a tumultuous week for CPS, with Greer facing a Sunday deadline to notify Smith about whether or not her contract will be renewed. Though Greer hired an outside law firm to investigate the toxicity allegations against Smith in January, it is unclear whether the probe will wrap up prior to the Sunday deadline.
Greer herself is also facing widespread criticism from parents, and School Committee members met Tuesday in a closed-door session to discuss whether to renew her own contract. If both Greer and Smith leave the district, it would be a stunning shake-up of the district’s top leadership.
In their email, the group defended Smith and accused the coalition of only representing white parents, referencing a School Committee meeting last week in which several parents called for Greer to take action against Smith.
“This week, we watched the School Committee meeting and saw that the group advocating for this removal is made up of white or white-adjacent parents speaking on behalf of an entire community of caregivers,” the email read.
“While we believe that these parents want the best for the children at Graham and Parks, they cannot speak from our lived experience,” the email continued. “They cannot understand the stakes of how an inequitable education harms our children and their futures.”
In a Thursday email, a representative for the Caregiver’s Coalition wrote that they are “a diverse group, including people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, and immigrants. We have different religious, cultural, and educational backgrounds, and a range of economic means.”
They added that the more than 100 signatories to a December petition that raised concerns about Smith’s leadership “are an even larger group that is also reflective of the G&P Community.”
The Caregivers and Children of Color defended Smith’s efforts to address the racial achievement gap, which has been pervasive across Cambridge schools. According to Graham & Parks School Council parent member Christian Henry, the elementary school ranks last in the district for supporting learning among African American students.
In the Thursday email, parents praised Smith for “implementing a new curriculum to close this equity gap” at Graham & Parks.
“For black and brown families, Graham and Parks has been on the losing end of public education for too long,” the email read.
Though the group remained anonymous, Graham & Parks parent Isabella C. Ehrlich independently echoed their concerns in a Friday open letter in the Cambridge Day, opposing the coalition’s “relentless campaign against Principal Kathleen Smith’s leadership.”
“I am particularly concerned that the voices of brown and black families, especially those who do not enjoy socioeconomic privilege or English as their first language, are unheard,” she wrote.
“We cannot allow a small, privileged group to direct the future of our school based on their perspectives alone,” Ehrlich added.
The anonymous group also suggested that the coalition’s demands were related to Smith’s focus on addressing racial inequities.
“Demanding a change in leadership — with a principal who is trying for the first time in decades to close this achievement gap — feels targeted,” they wrote.
The coalition objected to this charge, writing in their Thursday email that their “concerns about Dr. Smith have nothing to do with her goal of decreasing gaps in test scores at our school.”
“The school and district can close equity gaps without empowering leaders with a record of toxic and retaliatory leadership,” the coalition added. “We believe that such leadership will undermine rather than further our shared goals.”
—Staff writer Darcy G Lin can be reached at darcy.lin@thecrimson.com.
—Staff writer Emily T. Schwartz can be reached at emily.schwartz@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @EmilySchwartz37.
