The Boston Public Schools Committee is expected to sign a separation agreement Wednesday giving Superintendent Brenda Cassellius at least $311,000 to walk away from her job in June after just three years in the post.
The School Committee can break the superintendent’s contract at any time as long as they give her four months’ notice, which they did when Cassellius and Mayor Michelle Wu announced that she would be leaving by “mutual agreement” on June 30.
“I don’t think it’s fair to give her less than what she’s owed,” said Latoya Gayle, a local education advocate. “That’s the price Boston has to pay for having a revolving door of superintendents every time we have a new administration.”
Cassellius’s predecessor, Tommy Chang, was superintendent from 2015 to 2018.
The School Committee actually extended Cassellius’s contract in 2021 by two years — until June 30, 2023 — and because it did so, it is required to pay her one year’s worth of her base salary, or the rest of what she would have been paid, had she stayed until 2023, whichever is less, according to her contract.
If they had chosen to terminate her at the beginning or at the end of her contract, the most she would get is 12 months, said Denise Murphy, co-chair of the labor and employment group at the Boston law firm Rubin and Rudman. But because the city did it in the middle of her two-year contract, she’ll get an increased amount.
“It’s a lot of money, and these golden parachutes seem to be part of the process, unfortunately,” said Vernee Wilkinson, director of the parent advisory board of SchoolFacts Boston, an education advocacy group.
Sharra Gaston, a Boston Public Schools spokeswoman, on Wednesday said the separation agreement had not yet been given to her office.
