Here are the nine people who will decide on Miami’s next school superintendent
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Down to three
Jose Dotres, Rafaela Espinal and Jacob Oliva are the finalists to be Miami-Dade Schools superintendent, and the vote could come Monday.
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The nine members of the Miami-Dade County School Board on Monday are expected to interview the three finalists they picked for the school superintendent post being vacated by Alberto Carvalho.
They are expected to vote Monday on who will be the district’s next superintendent, just shy of three weeks after they began the search process.
And though the community has pushed back on the board’s short timeline and called for more public input and participation, the process and decision, ultimately, lies with the board — a fact Vice Chair Dr. Steve Gallon III reiterated at the board’s special meeting on Tuesday.
“I know what I know,” he said, after studying the applications from the 16 people who applied to be superintendent, a job that oversees the nation’s fourth-largest school district with a $7 billion budget and 335,000 students between traditional and charter schools. “And if five of us know enough about where we are, why create a platform or give an appearance of input?”
Gallon was speaking against conducting public interviews, which the board ultimately agreed on when it holds a public meeting to interview the candidates at 2 p.m. Monday.
The nine-member board needs a majority in its vote to appoint the next leader.
This is the first time since 2008 that the School Board — and the majority of its members — has had to appoint a district leader. Alberto Carvalho, who’s leaving Feb. 3 to head the Los Angeles Unified School District, has been in the job for 14 years.
Carvalho’s tenure far exceeds the national average on how long a superintendent stays on the job. Superintendents in the 100 largest U.S. school districts, per enrollment, on average, stayed on the job 6.16 years, according to a 2018 Broad Center report that examined superintendent tenure between 2003 and 2017.
School Board Chairperson Perla Tabares Hantman, then vice chair, and Dr. Marta Pérez, were both board members when Carvalho was appointed. Hantman has been on the board since 1996; Pérez, since 1998.
Gallon and Mari Tere Rojas were elected in 2016, while Dr. Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall was elected in 2010.
Dr. Lubby Navarro was appointed in 2015 by then-Gov. Rick Scott. In 2016, she was elected to the board.
Board members Lucia Baez-Geller, Christi Fraga and Luisa Santos are newcomers, each elected in 2020.
Hantman, Pérez, Rojas and Bendross-Mindingall are up for reelection in November. Each board member serves a four-year term and is paid an annual salary of $47,189.
How to contact your school board member
Information about each board member, including their contact information, can be found at https://www3.dadeschools.net/SchoolBoard/members
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