News Brief: Cambridge Rindge and Latin School To Vet Candidates for New Principal; High Salary, Benefits Are Perks

At a meeting last night between school officials and parents, Cambridge Public School administrators announced that they would begin screening applicants on Wednesday to fill the principal position at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (CRLS).

In January, Sybil N. Knight, the current CRLS principal, announced that she would step down on July 1 to accept a job offer as an assistant superintendent in Pennsylvania.

Cambridge Public School Superintendent Thomas Fowler-Finn said that he expected the high school to have little problem attracting candidates to fulfill the job, even though the “toughest job in education today is probably not the superintendents, it’s the high school principals.”

Fowler-Finn said that Cambridge offers the highest salary and benefits package in the area—the salary exceeds $100,000 and benefits include dental and health insurance along with paid holidays—and noted that CRLS is an exemplary educational institution.

“Money won’t buy you a good principal but a good circumstances will. I believe we have a really good high school to sell,” he said. “The school is clearly on the upswing...I think we’re salable.”

Parents at the meeting also noted the school’s exceptional academic potential.

“We not only have all these AP’s and academic track opportunities, but we also have RSTA,” said Catherine Sullivan, referring to the Rindge School of Technical Arts, where one of her sons was able to take engineering classes. “Something about this high school has been very good for all of them.”

When some parents noted the undesirable aspects of the school—such as the achievement gap and past accreditation problems—Fowler-Finn noted that the school system always puts the educational success of children first and that he was “not willing to let any student fail.”

—LAURA A. MOORE