Saugus’ School Committee will hire the town’s sixth school superintendent since 2012 before June 30, when Superintendent Dr. David DeRuosi retires.
The four finalists include a superintendent, a deputy superintendent, a principal, and a top state education official.
On paper, they all appear qualified to run the Saugus schools. But the successful candidate will need DeRuosi’s ability to advance big projects like the new middle school/high school while resisting a Saugus tendency to apply a “business-as-usual” mentality to local education.
It was DeRuosi who irritated some School Committee members by urging them to stop doing things the Saugus way when it came to crafting school budgets. It was also DeRuosi who, with the committee and Town Manager Scott Crabtree’s guidance, steered the schools through COVID-19 shutdowns and remote learning.
New professional challenges lured DeRuosi’s predecessors away from Saugus. But differences of opinion with committee members also sent them down the exit ramp. Hired in 2016, DeRuosi kept his working relationship with the School Committee intact even as town election cycles changed the committee’s personnel lineup.
The next superintendent would do well, in our view, to learn from DeRuosi’s successes and his mistakes. There were times when he dug in his heels too deep in standing up to committee members. A more compromise-oriented superintendent can build on DeRuosi’s accomplishments.
And much needs to get accomplished in the town’s schools. The second phase of the ambitious school-district reorganization and building program DeRuosi helped launch is scheduled to begin this year, and will focus on town elementary schools.
DeRuosi’s successor must shoulder the work involved in transitioning local schools from hybrid and remote learning to (hopefully) a full return to classroom learning in the fall. The next superintendent must also continue DeRuosi’s efforts to convince Saugus parents to keep their children in town schools instead of looking elsewhere for high school options.
