Frederick James Gillis (September 30, 1893 – December 24, 1988) was an American educator who served as superintendent of Boston Public Schools from 1960 to 1963.
[3] Gillis was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army in August 1917 and assigned to the 103rd Infantry Regiment at Camp Bartlett in Westfield, Massachusetts.
[2] As assistant superintendent, Gillis organized and developed classes and intellectually disabled students, arranged and started a Braille class, developed the safety education program and the program of safety broadcasts by school pupils, organized the school lunch program, arranged for a playground for physically disabled children, and from 1948 to 1960 directed the Boston Home and School Association.
[4] Gillis was considered for the superintendent's position following Patrick T. Campbell's death in 1937, but Arthur L. Gould was chosen instead.
[7] Following Haley's departure in 1960, Springfield, Massachusetts superintendent Joseph McCook and Longfellow School principal Charles O. Ruddy were reported to be the favorites to succeed him.
[4] Due to de facto ethnic grouping in the city, Boston's schools were effectively segregated.
[11] In 1943, Gillis was hospitalized with a severely lacerated trachea after a piece of a chicken bone got stuck in his throat.
[12] During the Korean War, one of Gillis' sons, Daniel, went missing after his fighter plane disappeared off of the Florida coast.