Worcester Schools Superintendent Taking Job In Virginia, Report Says
WORCESTER (CBS) -- Worcester's Superintendent of Schools has reportedly accepted a new job in Virginia, a month after writing a controversial letter.
Dr. Melinda Boone wrote to school committee members in September in response to child porn charges filed against two department employees.
The two workers were arrested in separate investigations over the summer. Boone apparently tried to keep that news from spreading.
"At this time the matter has not reached the media. We hope it does not," Boone wrote in a letter last week to the school committee.
Boone did not respond to WBZ NewsRadio 1030's request to comment on the letter at the time.
Boone will become the Superintendent at Norfolk Public Schools in Virginia, the county's newspaper Pilotonline.com reports.
Mayor Joseph Petty's office announced Boone's resignation Thursday, calling her a "passionate and talented leader."
"Despite the many challenges inherent in a large, urban school district, the Worcester Public Schools have improved in almost every way over the past six years," Petty wrote in a public statement released Thursday.
Worcester City Manager Edward Augustus Jr. said Boone, during her tenure, significantly lowered the schools' dropout rate.
"Melinda Boone cared about one thing during her tenure as superintendent: what was best for the kids of the Worcester Public Schools," Augustus Jr. said in a public statement.
School Committee members, including Brian O'Connell, however, took issue with her handling of the latest incident.
"Should we release information like this when developments take place? Absolutely we should," he said last week. "It's very important that as a municipality and as a board, which spends taxpayer dollars, that it would be as transparent and visible and open as we can possibly be."
Petty will recommend Chief Academic Officer Marco Rodrigues as interim Superintendent for the remainder of the school year.
