As school officials design a process to replace Superintendent Peter J. Negroni, some members of the black community are saying that deputy superintendents traditionally slide into the job and that a national search in 1989 was done largely to avoid hiring a black man.
History tells a different story.
And national searches have been routine since at least to 1950. There was a whole history of going outside the city for superintendents. Tonight, the School Committee is expected to complete the process as pressure mounts to give community groups, particularly those representing blacks and Hispanics, a share of the power. And the memory of the 1989 search still haunts the black community, he said. The black community is still offended by the Bryant situation, and they should be.