In 2010, when the state identified Union Hill and Chandler Street Elementary Community as being among the state’s lowest performing schools, residents and city officials launched an acrimonious public debate on how to cure the academic ills the schools were facing.

There was a change in leadership at the two schools —both principals were reassigned. Stakeholders — representatives from the state Department of Education, higher education, the City Council, the teachers union, the school administration, community groups and social organizations, and others — were tasked to provide recommendations on how to turn those schools around.

More recently, teachers at Claremont Academy were asked by the school administration to reapply for their jobs as a means of helping to improve academic achievement at a school whose principal had voluntarily stepped