Boston School Committee Interviews Somerville Superintendent Mary Skipper for BPS Top Job

Uncategorized · Meeting of July 19, 2026

Boston School Committee grills Somerville superintendent in first BPS superintendent finalist interview. The Boston School Committee held a more than two-hour public interview Saturday with Mary Skipper, Superintendent of Somerville Public Schools and one of two finalists to lead Boston Public Schools, with Chair Jerry Robinson presiding and members pressing Skipper on Black student achievement, native language instruction, special education reform, ESSER fund stewardship, and school safety. Skipper, who founded Tech Boston Academy in Dorchester and later served as a BPS high school network superintendent before moving to Somerville, said her top three first-90-day priorities would be assembling a diverse multilingual central team, rebuilding family trust through data transparency, and diagnosing broken systems in special education and English learner programming.

She cited reducing Somerville's out-of-district special education placements from roughly 120 to 70 students and directing nearly all of the district's ESSER funds to direct student services, including bilingual counselors and reading specialists, as concrete evidence of her approach. The committee will cast its final vote on June 29 at 5 p.m.; the second finalist, Dr. Tommy Welch, BPS Region 1 School Superintendent, was scheduled for a public interview the following day.

In the full story:

• Who Was There
• Organizations And Documents Referenced
• The complete report — 2,947 words

Source: the Uncategorized meeting of July 19, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.