Cambridge School Committee Asks Superintendent Victoria Greer to Resign in 5-2 Vote

Updated May 29, 2024, at 2:10 p.m.

The Cambridge School Committee voted to give Cambridge Public Schools Superintendent Victoria L. Greer a 90-day notice to resign, following a closed-door executive session meeting on Wednesday.

The vote, which ratified a decision that the committee made during a confidential meeting on April 30, comes nearly two months after The Crimson first reported that the School Committee sought Greer’s resignation during an April 1 executive session meeting.

The vote ended weeks of silence from both Greer and the School Committee about her future at the helm of the school district, after the School Committee essentially went dark for two months after news of their decision to seek Greer’s resignation leaked to the press.

Cambridge Mayor E. Denise Simmons said immediately after the vote that the committee “will work with great speed to appoint someone in the interim while we try to find a full-time new superintendent.”

“We will have a transition plan in place on or before June 30,” Simmons added.

It is unclear what exactly delayed the announcement from early April, but it was later revealed that a parent accidentally attended one hour of the School Committee’s April 1 executive session when they discussed Greer’s future in Cambridge.

The breach of a confidential meeting could have delayed the School Committee’s timeline of officially announcing their decision to tender the 90-day notice to Greer.

Five members voted in favor of the motion on Wednesday, with Mayor Simmons and School Committee member Richard Harding in opposition.

The committee also voted 5-2 to accept Greer’s separation agreement, which will be released publicly, and 6-1 to approve the Vice Chair member Caroline Hunter and Mayor Simmons’ “ability to work out a transition plan,” which will be brought back to the School Committee on or before June 24.

The School Committee’s vote will end Greer’s more than two-year tenure as CPS superintendent. During Wednesday’s executive session, a motion to allow Greer to finish out her contract until June 30, 2025 failed, with only Mayor Simmons and Harding voting in favor.

According to Greer’s original contract, the School Committee had until June 30 to notify Greer of any changes, otherwise the contract would automatically extend an additional year. Since March, the Committee has met 11 times in closed-door executive sessions to discuss “contract negotiations with nonunion personnel.”

During her time in the role, Greer faced intense scrutiny from parents and School Committee members alike over her hiring practices and her handling of allegations of toxicity and a lack of transparency at Graham & Parks Elementary School.

The School Committee evaluated Greer’s performance in the role as “needs improvement” during its annual evaluation in July 2023. Though Greer’s midpoint evaluation was delayed twice — and ultimately never delivered — dozens of parents delivered public comments demanding district change during the March 19 School Committee meeting.

Still, Greer accomplished several key goals as superintendent in Cambridge.

CPS launched and closed the application to a new Universal Preschool program in January, and i-Ready growth data — a digital tracker of students’ mathematics and reading progress — from the 2022-2023 school year demonstrated progress in students’ academic outcomes, according to Greer’s annual evaluation in July 2023.

The district’s 2022-2023 MCAS exam scores also returned to pre-pandemic levels, though English Language Arts results revealed large disparities between Black and White students.

Prior to her time as CPS superintendent, Greer served in the same role at Sharon Public Schools. Following three-year tenure in Sharon, the district’s school committee notified Greer that her contract would not be renewed.

Greer, who was Sharon’s first Black female Superintendent, later filed a Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination claim that the committee placed her on administrative leave after she complained about racial discrimination. She later received a $750,000 payout from an insurance company to settle the dispute.

—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.