3 Finalists For Lincoln-Sudbury Superintendent Job Selected

SUDBURY, MA — The Lincoln-Sudbury School Committee has voted to select Wellesley High School Principal Jamie Chisum, Wayland High School Principal Allyson Mizoguchi and Lexington High School Andrew Stephens as possible leaders for the regional school.

Longtime Superintendent and Principal Bella Wong announced in October she would leave the school at the end of the 2022-23 year. That announcement led to the formation of an 11-member search committee, whose members ultimately whittled down the candidate pool to the top candidates.

"We were fortunate to have a great pool of applicants and a very hardworking search committee," said School Committee member and search committee chair Kevin Matthews said in a news release. "Each is an experienced building leader and school administrator."

At a later date, the three finalists will each spend a day in the school, and will meet with parents, teachers and administrators. The school committee will also conduct final interviews with each candidate. Matthews said the committee could vote by April 5 to select the final candidate.

The search committee released the following biographies for each candidate:

Jamie Chisum is currently in his ninth year as Wellesley High School Principal. After an initial teaching assignment in Pittsfield, Chisum taught English at Wellesley for seven years before moving into an interim middle school principalship and the position of assistant principal before taking the leadership of the high school. The Berkshire County native earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and English literature from Brandeis, a master's of secondary English education at UMass-Amherst and a PhD in educational leadership from Boston College. He is licensed as a superintendent/assistant superintendent by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Allyson Mizoguchi is now in her ninth year as Principal of Wayland High School, having been the assistant principal from 2003 to 2014. She began her career as an English teacher in Brookline and Wayland. Mizoguchi earned a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, a master’s degree in education from Harvard University, and an EdD from the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. She maintained a link to BC by leading an online course on “Family and Community Engagement” in the Education Leadership and Policy program. She holds an active license for the superintendency and principalship from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Andrew Stephens joined Lexington Public Schools as the high school principal [in 2017]. Prior to that, he spent 10 years as principal of Duxbury High School and four years heading Hull High School. He began his career as a history teacher in Vermont before returning to Massachusetts, where he taught for three years at Newton North High School, and spent another three as an assistant housemaster. Stephens is a graduate of Colgate University, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in history, and Johnson State College in Vermont, where he got his master's degree in education. He obtained a Certificate of Advanced Educational Studies from Boston College and an EdD from Northeastern. He is licensed as a superintendent and principal by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Wong began her education career at LSRHS more than two decades ago as a science teacher, and was principal and superintendent for more than a decade.