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Board To Vote On Kishimoto As Hartford Schools Chief

Assistant Superintendent Would Move Up To Top Job

Vanessa De La Torre

February 19, 2011

A routine document released Friday confirmed what had been one of the city's open secrets: The board of education plans to appoint Assistant Superintendent Christina Kishimoto as the next schools chief.

The agenda for the school board's special meeting on Tuesday included a single item resolving to elect "Kishimoto to the office of Hartford Superintendent of Schools" by the board's majority vote. The item noted that the recommendation came from the search committee. The 13-person panel includes eight board members.

Contract details and an official start date are to be negotiated, according to the agenda item.

Kishimoto, 41, an Andover resident and policymaker who has been in the school system's central office since fall 2005, declined to comment until after Tuesday's vote.

Superintendent Steven Adamowski also deferred any comments until the vote is official. A top deputy to Adamowski, Kishimoto oversees secondary schools and developed the city's school choice program that has been a feature of Adamowski's reform plans. Adamowski intends to retire this summer.

At a regular board meeting earlier this week, board Chairman David MacDonald announced in a brief statement that a decision on the next superintendent had been made, but withheld identifying Adamowski's successor.

Sources told The Courant last week that Kishimoto was the search committee's choice over another internal candidate, Principal Tim Sullivan of Greater Hartford Classical Magnet School, who did not get a second interview.

Jim Starr, the executive director of Achieve Hartford!, an education reform group, said Friday that he supported Kishimoto as superintendent because she would continue the reform and "has certainly demonstrated herself to be a capable leader in the district."

Tuesday's meeting is set for 5:30 p.m. at the Hartford Public High School media center, 55 Forest St.