BPS Superintendent Finalist Mary Skipper Completes First Public Community Interview

BOSTON — July 19, 2026 — Mary Skipper, superintendent of Somerville Public Schools, completed a 90-minute community partner panel interview Saturday as one of two finalists for the Boston Public Schools superintendent position. The session, moderated by Jose Valenzuela of the Superintendent Search Committee, was delayed and restarted at 11 a.m. after a technical error distributed an incorrect Zoom link to the public. Seven panelists representing organizations including Edvestors, Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology, Youth Guidance Boston, Horizons for Homeless Children, and the Boston Public Health Commission questioned Skipper on partnerships, college attainment, vocational education, student safety, chronic absenteeism, arts programming, early education, and equity for Black and Latinx students. Skipper, drawing on her work building Tech Boston Academy and leading Somerville schools, said she would begin by auditing school-level partnerships across all 123 BPS schools to identify gaps, and described introducing the Calculus Project in Somerville to drive Black and Brown student enrollment in advanced math, bringing her leadership team's diversity to between one-third and one-half of senior staff. The second finalist, Dr. Tommy Welch, Region 1 School Superintendent at BPS, faces his own community panel Sunday.