Fall River picks school superintendent; board member quits in protest

FALL RIVER — The city has a new superintendent of schools — and one fewer School Committee member, after a highly volatile discussion and vote led to a board member immediately resigning. 

At a meeting held at B.M.C. Durfee High School on Wednesday evening, the committee chose Assistant Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer Tracy Curley to lead the Fall River school district in a 5-1 vote. It followed a combative debate session that saw multiple board members raise their voices at each other, trading accusations of favoritism and disregard for procedure. 

The board’s seventh vote would have been School Committee member Sara O. Rodrigues. Expressing “tremendous concern” over the majority’s evident choice, she left the stage before the board took its vote. 

“I will not be a part of a discussion like this,” Rodrigues said. “Effective immediately, I am resigning from this committee.” 

She then gathered her belongings and exited the building.  

The reduced board voted to appoint Curley as superintendent subject to a successful negotiation of a contract. 

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Fall River school board at odds over Curley’s experience

Curley has been a teacher since 1997 and worked for the Fall River school district since 2009, when she became an associate principal at Durfee High. She led Henry Lord Community School as principal from 2014 to 2017. She moved to district administration, as math and science curriculum director, then director of Data, Assessment, Accountability and Research, and in 2022 became assistant superintendent under outgoing Superintendent Maria Pontes. 

She was among four candidates for the superintendent job, along with Norwood Superintendent David Thomson, East Bridgewater Public School Superintendent Elizabeth Legault and Bristol-Warren Regional School District Superintendent Ana Riley.  

Each was interviewed for an hour on questions as varied as their positions on partnering with community agencies, budgeting, combating the teacher shortage, addressing school attendance, and their philosophies of special education and social-emotional learning. 

Several School Committee members said Curley was their choice, despite having never led a school district.  

“The thing I’m looking for … is developing a culture of consistency,” said committee member Thomas Khoury. “Our candidate Dr. Tracy Curley stood out to me because she’s been here in this district for so long. … She has a working knowledge with this community because she’s from this community, and those relationships are very well established.” 

Her lack of experience was a sticking point for School Committee members Rodrigues and Kevin Aguiar, who favored Riley. 

Riley has 33 years in the educational field. She previously served as superintendent for Portsmouth, Rhode Island, for five years. She left in 2019 to become deputy commissioner for instructional programs at the Rhode Island Department of Education.

School Committee members Mimi Larrivee and Shelli Pereira, favored Curley as someone with significant knowledge of the district and a consistent presence. Pereira also suggested hiring Riley might pose a conflict of interest since Riley’s husband, former City Councilor and School Committee member Kyle Riley, is principal at Resiliency Preparatory Academy. 

Aguiar disagreed. “I think the time is now to bring in a seasoned leader to move this district forward,” he said, adding that Curley has “zero experience as superintendent — zero.”  

As it became clear the divided school board was leaning toward supporting Curley, the language became much more pointed, with Aguiar calling their decision a “travesty” and suggesting her appointment was politically motivated. Pereira in turn claimed Aguiar and Rodrigues intended to vote for Riley regardless of the interviews.

“To say that it would be an injustice to not put [Curley] in that position screams to me that … this is someone who’s been in our district so therefore we must reward her by promoting her to superintendent,” said Rodrigues. “We need to have someone who has the best interest of the students and has the experience to drive that work forward. I’m sorry, but Dr. Curley does not.” 

Pereira took issue with being accused of making her decision based on personal favoritism, shouting, “I’ll be honest with you, if I was going to make a personal decision, it would be to vote for Ana because I’ve known her almost my whole life and I think her and her family are amazing.”

She added, “The last superintendent we had, I thought she’s great. We unanimously voted for her. Where was she superintendent before she was superintendent here? … We promoted someone in-house and it wasn’t an issue then.”

Pontes rose through the ranks of the Fall River school district to become interim superintendent, after the schools chief Matthew Malone resigned in 2021 under a cloud of controversy. An investigation revealed Malone harassed district staff members, including calling a disabled employee an ableist slur and using inappropriate language toward female employees. Pontes officially took the reins in 2022, which was her first superintendent job. 

“Our current superintendent has served so admirably and she had no prior superintendent experience,” Khoury said, his voice raised. 

Aguiar, also shouting, said both Pontes and Curley worked for the district when the harassment occurred.  

“Here in Fall River Public Schools, what we do is, we have a job, and if…