Beverly School Committee Interviews Cushing, Turner For Superintendent

BEVERLY, MA — The Beverly School Committee completed the second of two public interviews with finalist candidates to be the district's next superintendent on Tuesday night with a discussion and vote on offering the position to a chosen candidate set for Thursday.

The field was cut to two when Newburyport Superintendent Sean Gallagher withdrew his name from consideration over the weekend — leaving Medford Assistant Superintendent Peter Cushing and Melrose Assistant Superintendent Jennifer Turner as the two remaining finalists.

• Beverly Superintendent Finalist Field Down To 2, Turner Interviews

A public interview with Turner was held on Monday night.

Cushing has been the assistant superintendent in Medford since 2019 and previously served as the principal at Bartlett High School in Webster and the vice principal at Narragansett High School in Templeton.

He spoke Tuesday about the challenges facing school budgets amid lagging state aid, steps that can be taken to help the district recover from the historic November teachers' strike, and steps he has taken to support marginalized student populations at his previous stops.

"My authentic self is to let people know who I am," Cushing said. "To build relationships, to build strong bridges to the future so that we can be successful for our students."

He said helping recover from the aftermath of the teacher strikes involves rebuilding trust between the teachers, school administration and the community.

"Healing takes time," he said. "Your body may heal on its own from some wounds. But the reality is that wounds like the strike require careful cultivation, require us as leaders to send an olive branch across the aisle and work to come together."

He said that Beverly should establish a joint-management labor committee to help deal with issues before they become formal grievances and that promotes an "open and honest dialogue," and said during his in-district visit on Tuesday that "educators shared with me today that they still don't feel heard."

"We need to find a way to work together to truly not only listen but then establish plans that have through lines where you can see that this is what was said, it was investigated, looked into and reviewed, and then we came up with solutions," he said. "We have that obligation to really heal this."

Cushing talked about how he worked to transition from a "warhead" logo at Narragansett High School — later done in a student-based petition after he left the district — and was once "written up" by a superintendent for helping students begin a Gay-Straight Alliance chapter.

"Right now, what we are doing as a federal government and as a nation in targeting some of the most vulnerable of us," he said, "of our human collective, is more than disheartening — it's disgraceful. We have to be willing to stand in harm's way to protect our students.

"I have put myself in harm's way. I have really stepped outside of my comfort zone. Because our LGBTQ+, our students of color, they need to be protected. We have to own the promise that we've made to them throughout the past 50 years of the civil rights movement that many people want to forget happened and want to push aside, and stand with those students, and make sure their voices are heard.

"I understand that may not be popular with some people. But as a leader, I have to stand sometimes with the unpopular decisions because the good of the one, or the good of the few, outweighs what the majority might think.

"We have a duty to uphold and protect their humanity and their civil rights."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza."