Malden will be seeking new Superintendent of Schools this year

School Committee votes to not renew contract of third-year Supt. Dr. Noriega-Murphy

Special to the Advocate

The City of Malden will be seeking a new Superintendent of Schools this year, with details still forthcoming about a timeline and the procedures of a superintendent search. Malden Mayor and School Committee Chairperson Gary Christenson first announced this news at the first meeting of the school board in 2024, held on Monday night. In brief remarks on Monday evening at the Malden City Hall meeting, Mayor Christenson said, “After our last meeting, the Vice Chair Jennifer Spadafora and I met with our Superintendent [Dr. Ligia Noriega-Murphy], and we agreed to work together on the transition to a new superintendent at the end of this school year.”

No School Committee members spoke about the announcement, or after it at Monday’s meeting. According to sources, while the closed-door, executive session vote for or against a contract renewal offer was a majority vote of the nine-member School Committee – a requirement for formal action – it was not a unanimous one. The result of that vote is expected to be revealed when the minutes of the executive session from December 2023 are made public.

Supt. Dr. Noriega-Murphy was selected as the new Malden Superintendent of Schools in the spring of 2021 and began serving in her new post in July of that year. She replaced former Supt. John Oteri, a former Somerville Public Schools administrator with Malden roots, who had served in the Malden district’s top post for four years: from July 2017 to the end of the 2021 school year.

Supt. Dr. Noriega-Murphy came to Malden with 26 years of experience in the Boston Public Schools as a teacher, department leader, principal and assistant superintendent. She began her career in 1995 as a Spanish teacher at the Donald McKay Middle School in Boston before chairing the world languages department at the Boston Arts Academy. In 2004, Noriega-Murphy became headmaster of Excel High School in South Boston, a role she maintained for six years before being named assistant academic superintendent for high schools. She later served as an assistant superintendent on assignment as headmaster of The English High School in Boston. Immediately before coming to Malden, she was assistant superintendent on assignment as principal at the Jackson Mann K-8 School in Brighton.

A news release from the City of Malden earlier this week stated Mayor Christenson, on behalf of the School Committee, announced that the Committee recently voted to not renew the contract of Superintendent Dr. Ligia Noriega-Murphy, which ends June 30, 2024.

Supt. Noriega-Murphy has been working on a three-year contract, which began on July 1, 2021. According to sources, terms of that contract included formal notification on a potential new contract or not was due to be provided to the Superintendent by the end of the 2023 calendar year, December 31.

Dr. Noriega-Murphy has led the Malden Public Schools for the past two and a half years, “which included some challenging times in education, especially during the end of the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to the city’s official statement.

The statement continues, “Dr. Noriega-Murphy assembled a strong leadership team both within central administration and individually at each school for the return to in-person learning which ensured continuity for the 6,400 students and their families of the Malden Public School system.”

“I am grateful to Dr. Noriega-Murphy for her contributions to education in Malden, and the professional approach she has brought to the role,” said Mayor Christenson in the statement, reiterating some of his public remarks at Monday’s meeting.

“Running a district this size can best be described as demanding. Dr. Noriega-Murphy has positioned us for the future with a solid foundation that we can build upon as we collectively work to deliver to Malden families the education they deserve,” Mayor Christenson added.

Monday evening’s announcement came immediately after a lengthy presentation on behalf of the Superintendent and central administration of some year-end highlights. Included were some cited achievements and progress in a number of areas within the district. In November, Supt. Dr. Noriega-Murphy and central office staff also gave a detailed presentation on some substantial gains made district-wide in results of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) testing, notably at Malden High School and other schools in the district.

Additionally, the district’s student population has increased to its largest level in a number of years since Supt. Dr. Noriega came aboard: nearly 500 new students in the past two and a half years – close to nine percent. This includes over 150 new students at Malden High School this year, as its population increased to 1,909 this school, its most since 2014. The total district population is at 6,476, up from close to 6,000 in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Superintendent and the Malden district central administration have come under fire publicly at times, particularly from the Malden teachers union, the Malden Education Association (MEA). In June 2022 there was a walkout of about 500 Malden High students and march to City Hall in protest of potential cuts in the educator staff with the distribution of “pink slips” to teachers – a legally mandated policy. Most recently MEA President Deb Gesualdo and other union members have appeared and spoke at School Committee meetings with complaints about the K-8 school curriculum with allegations of racially charged materials being incorporated and in use by students.

Gesualdo has filed charges with the labor review board alleging she was locked out of her workspace earlier this year. The union president on several occasions has stated that there have been dozens of formal grievances filed by the MEA alleging violations of the union’s contract with the City of Malden, most of which are still pending and unresolved.

According to Tuesday’s news release, the “School Committee will begin the search process for the next superintendent with the assistance of outside support and will take up the discussion and planning surrounding the search process at the February meeting [Monday, Feb. 5].”