High Principal Turnover in the Framingham Public Schools is a Reality

Recently in a Framingham Facebook group, Framingham Community & Government Chat, a dispute arose regarding the contention that principal turnover in recent years has been high.

The aim of this article is to provide the facts on that issue, drawn from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) data, a review of principal data from the Framingham Public Schools (FPS) website, and news media releases dealing with principal appointments.

The bottom line is that there has been unusually high turnover of principals in the last 2 years, which coincides with a period when 200 experienced teachers quit to take employment elsewhere. The exodus of experienced teachers was detailed in a prior article:

Mayor Creates An Alternate Reality for the State of the Framingham Public Schools

There it was explained that typically about 40 experienced teachers retire each year, as happened in 2022, but that in the two recent years: 2024 and 2025, about 140 experienced teachers departed Framingham Public Schools. Subtracting out the expected retirements produces the 200 experienced teacher exit noted above.

The data captures the extent of the teacher loss problem, and is supported by anecdotal evidence obtained from teachers who remain in FPS, despite all the difficulties they are experiencing every day from the problems caused by the Mayor starving the schools of $18 million in education funding, which should have gone to support low income, non-English fluent and special needs students.

The data on principal retention in FPS is captured in the following two graphics captured from the DESE website. In each case the associated URL is provided:

Framingham 2025 Staffing Retention Data

Framingham 2024 Staffing Retention Data

The 2025 data refers to staff retention status at the start of the 2025 school year, which began in September 2024.

7 principals departed when school ended in June 2024.

The 2024 data refers to staff retention status at the start of the 2024 school year, which began in September 2023.

4 principals departed when school ended in June 2023.

The principal flight is confirmed independently by looking at current school principals and determining when they were appointed to their positions. The following table shows the appointment data for all schools with principals, with appointments in the last 2 years shown in bold. In each of those cases a media reference is given, which confirms the appointment year. The school principal names are drawn from the Framingham Public Schools website.

News releases:

1. https://patch.com/massachusetts/framingham/framingham-brophy-elementary-names-next-principal
2. https://framinghamsource.com/index.php/2023/02/07/framingham-elementary-vice-principal-promoted-to-principal/
3. https://patch.com/massachusetts/framingham/framingham-high-schools-has-new-principal
4. https://patch.com/massachusetts/framingham/framingham-schools-names-harmony-grove-elementary-interim-principal
5. https://patch.com/massachusetts/framingham/framingham-schools-name-new-hemenway-principal
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_owq7Y1pIM
7. https://www.metrowestdailynews.com/story/news/education/2023/04/25/alana-cyr-named-principal-potter-road-elementary-school-framingham-ma/70145755007/
8. https://framinghamsource.com/index.php/tag/lisa-didonato/ [Indirect]

The bottom line on this is that in the last 2 years, there has been dramatic turnover of school principals, which accompanied the large turnover in experienced teachers.

8 principals are 1-2 years into their tenure.

This reflects the compounding difficulties which teachers and principals have faced with the withdrawal of $18 million in education funding from the schools over 4 years:

• Lack of pre-K expansion to all 4-year-olds, resulting in 300 children arriving in kindergarten each year not speaking English.
• A chronic shortage of competent classroom aides for special needs and non-English fluent students, due to pay being 20% too low.
• Chronically late school buses, due to driver pay being 20% too low.

It is abundantly clear at this juncture that the most important move to make to get the school system back on a rising trajectory is to restore to the schools the $18 million Mayor Sisitsky removed over 4 years.

That $18 million is sitting unused in the city general fund.

Returning that funding to the schools, at the rate of $4.5 million/year for 4 years, would solve the 3 major problems dragging the schools down.

But only a leadership change in the Mayor’s office will make that happen.

We have a Mayor in office who thinks that: “Everything’s going great”.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uNr28RIYu6M