When John Buckey arrived in this charming seaside town in the summer of 2020, hired as superintendent of Marblehead Public Schools, he greeted his new role with optimism, even as the pandemic raged around him.
Just as school boards have become the center of culture wars across the country, so too have superintendents, caught up in clashes among warring political factions around incendiary issues such as book bans, critical race theory, sex education, and gender identity.