Politics Badger the Schools of Cambridge

The complicated issue as to who is the real superintendent of Cambridge public schools will be tested next week in Suffolk Superior Court.

Court intervention became necessary when Frank J. Frisoli, fiery superintendent of Cambridge schools refused to yield the Superintendent's offices at Rindge Tech to his successor. Alforence Cheatham.

Frisoli was ousted from the $38,000 a year post in a narrow vote by the School Committee last January. However, when Cheatham arrived at the Rindge Tech offices September 1. Frisoli refused to vacate, saying. "I am still the Superintendent here." Cheatham former district superintendent from Chicago's West Side, was selected in June by the majority members of the School Committee to replace Frisoli.

Three hundred spectators jammed the School Committee meeting room a week after the incident, expecting a public confrontation between the two men at the Committee's first meeting of the term. Cheatham failed to appear--"on the advice of counsel," according to Mavor Barbara Ackermann--and Frisoli occupied the Superintendent's chair.

After fifteen minutes, the bewildered committeemen recessed Frisoli assumed the Superintendent's chair for the second night in a row. Ackermann asked him to leave. Frisoli declined, insisting that he still held the office.

"If Mr. Frisoli chooses to sit in the chair ordinarily occupied by the Superintendent, that does not make him the Superintendent," said Ackermann who serves as chairman of the School Committee and voted against Frisoli last January.

The dispute reached Suffolk Superior Court on September 8 but Judge Francis J. Good postponed it until next Monday. The suit, brought by minority committeemen James F. Fitzgerald and Donald A. Fantini on Frisoli's behalf, argues that the 57-year-old Superintendent has tenure in his position. Frisoli has 36 years experience in the Cambridge School System, but only one year a Superintendent.

Three years service in the system is necessary for tenure. Lawyers for the Committee majority will argue that while Frisoli has tenure as a teacher, he lacks it as Superintendent.

When chided by Ackermann at the second Committee meeting, for waiting until school opened to rate the tenure issue, Frisoli explained that his term had not expired until August 31. "You can't be aggrieved for assault and battery until you've been assaulted," he said. "And I was not assaulted until August 31."

Defeated in two previous court battles concerning a referendum on the Superintendent, the pro-Frisoli minority (which has the sympathies of much of Cambridge) is trying to keep the issue alive on technicalities. Two weeks ago Fantini said that as Frisoli was removed "pending reassignment and had not been reassigned he was still Superintendent Committeeman David A. Wylie a member of the majority replied that Frisoli would be assigned a new position once the superintendent issue was settled.

Supporters of Frisoli also contend that Cheatham was an unqualified replacement because he lacked Massachusetts teachers' certification until September 8. Ackermann termed certification a "formality" and said that Cheatham did not seek it earlier because "nobody happened to think of it--usually the Superintendent takes care of hiring staff."

At the same meeting Fantini charged that Cheatham is an "avowed social revolutionist."

Both Cheatham and Frisoli have refused to speak to the press since the dispute began.

In contrast to the City Manager controversy, riddled with intrigue and shifting alliances, the city's opposing political and social forces stand in stark outline in the Superintendent fight.

Political reformers, exemplified by the Cambridge Civic Association (CCA), confront the old line logrolling Democrats. "An alliance between the intellectual and economic elite and the lower-class backs faces middle and working class ethnics. Two educational philosophies, one promoting innovation and the academic curriculum, the other emphasizing discipline and occupational education struggle for supremacy. A home town boy born and bred is pitted against a well-traveled black from Chicago and the South.

But the bitterness is not new. Antagonism marked Frisoli's selection in 1971 and his first year as Superintendent. Many parents were dissatisfied when the previous School Committee dominated by Independents, promised citizen participation in the selection of the Superintendent but then elected Frisoli with a minimum of debate.

During the past school year, Frisoli refused to approve an Afro-American organization at Cambridge High and Latin because its membership would be open to all students. When students subsequently demonstrated in protest at his office. Frisoli replied by calling the police.

Frisoli joined the Cambridge School System in 1936 as a teacher of Spanish. He advanced to assistant headmaster in 1952 while his brother former Mayor Joseph DeGuglielmo chaired the School Committee. He became acting Superintendent in 1970 and a year later was elevated to Superintendent.

In the School Committee elections last November, Frisoli became the central issue. Three candidates were elected from the CCA-backed slate opposing Frisoli: Wylie, Charles M. Plerce, and Peter G. Gesell '62. Three Independents who support Frisoli--Fantini, Fitzgerald, and John E. Maynard--also won. Fantini, once a student of Frisoli, enjoyed CCA support until he voted for Frisoli in 1971.

CCA-endorsed candidates won a slim majority on the City Council and chose one of their number, Ackermann, as mayor, who by law also chairs of the School Committee. The anti-Frisoli forces thus gained control of the Committee.

Frisoli termed the outcome a "political accident" since CCA candidate Frank H. Duehay '55, dean of admission at the Graduate School of Education, defeated Independent Leonard Russell by only 36 votes for the ninth Council slot. In total, more votes were cast for Independent candidates than for the CCA slate.

A turbulent meeting followed when the new School Committee first met and debated the Superintendent issue. Over 2000 people crowded into Rindge Tech Auditorium on January 18 for a seven-hour marathon session highlighted by several fist fights a bomb threat and 50 speakers.

Debate slacked off in the early hours of the next morning and the weary committeemen finally voted out Frisoli. "As Superintendent he has failed to meet his responsibilities in administering the School Department, in providing the School Committee with adequate and continuing information and advice on policy, and in carrying out policy," the resolution read. "In addition, he has shown opposition to the prevailing educational attitude of the Committee."

An amendment by vice-chairman Wylie listed 29 reasons for removing the incumbent superintendent. Among the criticisms of Frisoli:

* Failure to respond to the "alarmingly high dropout rate" approaching 25 per cent

* Mishandling preparation and planning of the opening of three new schools

* No explicit educational goals for Cambridge schools

Last submission of annual budgets to the School Committee

* Failure to institute a work-study program or to fund teacher workshops adequately

* Disregarding recommendations from the School Committee on easing racial tension in Cambridge High and Latin and of a directive from the School Committee to work toward a 20 per cent black faculty

* Lack of support for the Pilot School and other educational innovations

* Failure to energetically seek. Federal funds available to Cambridge

* Reluctance to accept responsibility for the overall performance of the school system.

Committeeman Fitzgerald termed the 29 counts "ridiculous." "Mr. Wylie is responsible for tearing down the school system to take care of his radical friends," he said. "In a crisis Frisoli knows more about the community than a man from Chicago." "It's a political game," Fantini said. "It is Mr. Wylie's intention to run the school system with an iron list."

In response to the ouster, Fantini helped organize an ad, hoe organization called "Citizens for Frisoli". A thousand people gathered to kick off a pro-Frisoli campaign replete with bumper stickers, posters and lapel buttons.

Supporters of Frisoli and included Fitzgerald, the four Independent City councillors, and the 675-member Cambridge Teachers Association Mary Mroz, president of the Teachers Association said "525 Association members supported Frisoli last year and we want to know if 525 teachers can be wrong."

In the month after the ouster Citizens for Frisoli" collected over 6000 signatures on petitions calling for a referendum on the superintendent question However the liberal CCA majority on the City Council refused to place the question on the ballot. The pro-Frisoli faction crowded the galleries and shouted epithets such as "Power to the People" while the City Council debated the matter. Both Middlesex Superior Court and the Supreme Judicial Court upheld the council's decision, ruling that Frisoli's removal was a administrative rather than a legislative action and therefore not subject to referendum.

"Citizens for Frisoli", claiming 1500 members, continues to work for his retention. The group itself did not formally participate in the search for a successor, but individual members contradictorily sided in the hunt.

In the Cambridge Chronicle on January 20, John Gregory described the Superintendent's proponents. "Mr. Frisoli finds support from many laymen and faculty alike: who seem to fear innovation and are gravely concerned with what they find as a lack of discipline and sagging moral values among some of the young."

In spite of his reputation as a disciplinarian. Frisoli finds many of his most vigorous advocates among the Cambridge students. A delegation occupied the balcony of Rindge Tech Auditorium and chanted "We want Frisoli" during the long meeting in January when he was ousted. The senior class presidents of Rindge and Cambridge High and Latin spoke in his favor.

Firm in its resolution to replace Frisoli, the School Committee began its search with a list of 200 applicants By early June the School Committee majority was at a stand will over two candidates. Wylie and Gesell supported Hartford School Superintendent Medill Bair while Acker mann and Pierce the only black member of the committee favored Cheatham.

Rumors circulated that a black had to be named either City Manager or Superintendent Wylie reacted strongly against the suggestion. The deadlock was broken when Bair offered $5000 raise by Hartford withdrew The School Committee appointed Cheatham on June 14.

Cheatham old and a native of Philadelphia ranked second behind Bair with the citizen groups and second behind Seymour Grechko of Detroit who had withdrawn earlier with the teachers and students.

The new Superintendent graduated from Howard University in Washington D.C and earned Masters degrees in Education from Harvard and Columbia After working in the Savannah, Ga., school system he became a district superintendent on Chicago's West Side There he handled a district of 30,000 students--60 per cent black, 30 per cent Chicano, and 10 per cent white.

Two weeks ago Ackermann said in an interview with the Crimson that Cheatham would bring "an improved relationship between teachers parents, and administrators."

"Young teachers will feel their ideas encouraged and parents will feel wanted within the system she added.

Presently, neither Frisoli or Cheatham handles the day-to-day duties of Superintendent, leaving the task to Assistant Superintendent Edmund Murphy. As Frisoli continues to occupy the Superintendent's chair at the School Committee, indications are that the court case could drag on well into the school year.

"The School Committee will act or, Cheatham's recommendations and work around Frisoli." Wylie said. "The fact that he won't give up the seat only shows his childishness."

"Under no circumstances will we accept Mr. Frisoli as Superintendent." Ackermann maintained. "And if he puts roadblocks in our way, then it's sad, very sad.