Afro-Latina Among M-DCPS Superintendent Finalists

Miami FL

19 January, 2022

7:35 PM

Description

By Bianca Marcof, Miami Times Staff Writer, the Miami Times Jan 18, 2022 After just a one-week search, Miami-Dade County School Board members have narrowed down a field of candidates to fill the post of outgoing Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. After a 7-2 vote on Tuesday, the district is moving forward with three finalists – Jose L. Dotres, Ed.D., Jacob Oliva and Rafaela Espinal, Ed.D. – all of whom will undergo public interviews. Dotres is the deputy superintendent of Collier County schools. He formerly spent decades in Miami-Dade, including serving as chief human capital officer, chief of staff, chief academic officer and regional superintendent, among other positions. As the Florida Department of Education senior chancellor for the division of public schools, Oliva is head of K-12 education in the state. Prior to his current role he was a teacher, assistant principal, assistant superintendent and superintendent for Flagler County Schools. Jose L. Dotres (Jose Dotres via Twitter) Espinal, an assistant superintendent in the Office of Talent Management and Innovation for the New York City Department of Education since 2018, previously served as superintendent for Community School District 12 in the Bronx, and was a principal and bilingual teacher. The three were selected from a pool of 14 applicants during a special board meeting held Jan. 18. Sixteen local and out-of-region candidates applied for the job, who had just seven days to turn in their credentials – an approach many in the community have criticized as being rushed. Two ultimately withdrew their applications. According to Walter Harvey, the board's attorney, half the applicants met the board's minimum qualifications – Dotres, Espinal, Oliva, Danita Duhart, Derek Negron, Sherrell Hobbs. Ph.D., and Oscar Rico, Ed.D. Steve Gallon III, the board's vice chair, came to the meeting prepared to name a possible successor after personally interviewing the candidates. He made a motion to nominate Dotres for superintendent but withdrew it "out of [his] immense respect" for the candidate. Three of the 14 candidates are African American, Gallon said, addressing a line in an opinion article by the Miami Herald Editorial Board stating that there were no Black candidates. "So 21% of the individuals are African American and that is consistent with the demographics of this particular community," he said. Of the three finalists, Espinal is Dominican American and the only woman. Last year, she filed a lawsuit against the city's Department of Education, claiming that she was abruptly fired from her job as head of Community School District 12 in part after refusing to mimic the "Wakanda Forever" salute from the 2018 comic book movie "Black Panther" during superintendent meetings. When she declined to join in, the suit stated she was told by superiors "that she was not 'Black enough' because she did not 'get down' with them 'like that.'" Jacob Oliva (Florida Department of Education via Twitter) Meanwhile, 39 people applied to become Broward County Public Schools superintendent after its board conducted a lengthy national search, including its interim superintendent, Vickie Cartwright. Eight are being considered. The new superintendent will replace Robert Runcie, who stepped down in August following his arrest on perjury charges. Gallon addressed the discourse regarding the comparisons to this national search, stating that a national search firm is costly and two of the eight candidates being considered by Broward are found in Miami-Dade's pool – Espinal and Michael Cohen, a superintendent with the York Regional District School Board in Canada, one of the nation's largest school boards. "We ended up basically in the same place," said Gallon. "So for the resources, the time, the revenue, the extension that was put in place – and I do understand some of my colleagues who were concerned about the time frame – I want you to understand this colleagues … they had an exhaustive process, they spent resources. We did not have a time-wise exhaustive process." Rafaela Espinal (TC.Columbia.edu) Board Chair Perla Tabares Hantman also took time during the meeting to explain to those asking for the board to select an interim superintendent rather than someone permanently for the position, revealing that she had actually prepared an item to approve Deputy Superintendent Jaime Torrens as interim for the Dec. 15 school board meeting. But upon discussion, Torrens declined the role. "This is the person that has been substituting or taking over when Mr. Carvalho has been either a day off or even in interviews, even responding to issues that have taken place, and Mr. Torrens has done an exceptionally good job and this is the person that Mr. Carvalho had placed his total trust in him to be," Hantman said. Moving forward in the process to eventually hire the most qualified candidate to serve as superintendent, the school board will notify the finalists to come to an open meeting and be publicly interviewed. The next school board meeting is Feb. 9 at 11 a.m. Carvalho is set to leave Miami Feb. 3 to lead the Los Angeles Unified School District as its new superintendent. The Miami Times is the largest Black-owned newspaper in the south serving Miami's Black community since 1923. The award-winning weekly is frequently recognized as the best Black newspaper in the country by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.