As Miami-Dade’s new superintendent, these are the challenges José Dotres faces on Day 1
After 14 years, Miami-Dade County Public Schools will have a new superintendent on Monday: José Dotres.
He’ll take over for Alberto Carvalho, who left Miami to be superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. He’ll also inherit the many challenges district leaders nationally are facing, ranging from the ongoing teacher shortage and COVID-19 pandemic-related learning losses to widening achievement gaps and increasing concerns about students’ mental health.
Dotres, 59, will also have to gain the trust of a community that expressed concern and skepticism of the School Board’s superintendent search process and his perceived predetermined appointment.
For his part, Dotres acknowledges the challenges. Last month, after the board appointed him in a 6-3 vote, he told the Miami Herald his first act as superintendent would be to conduct a “temperature check” of the district. He also said he plans to engage with and learn from community organizations that work alongside the district, and acknowledged some groups’ frustration with the superintendent search.
He would have “a very important conversation with school leadership and the regional superintendent to really recalibrate where we are as a district,” he said. Doing so would allow him to understand the systems already in place to address the most pressing issues.
For Dotres, that’s understanding how the district is responding to and identifying students with social-emotional concerns, he said.
Overcoming community concerns
Throughout the search for a new superintendent, community members — and some School Board members — raised continued concern about the speed and the perception that Dotres was a shoo-in from the beginning.
Larry Williams, chairman of the board of ICARE, Inner City Alumni for Responsible Education, told the Herald after Dotres’ appointment that he will need to prove he’s not “a puppet-type superintendent, where the board dictates what they want.”
Another potential riff with community members he’ll have to overcome is his decision to live in Broward County.
During his interview, some board members questioned his decision and called for his contract to require him to relocate. (His contract does not include that provision.)
After his appointment, some members of the community, such as Miami-Dade County Commissioner Rene García, called on Dotres to reconsider. His superintendency isn’t about were he lives, but “about what I’m doing for kids,” Dotres has said.
Dotres will also have to persuade voters to again approve a tax referendum to increase teacher pay and hire school police officers for every school. The four-year tax hike that passed in 2018 and brought in more than $230 million annually ends this year.
Learning losses and achievement gaps
Despite the district’s graduate rate of 90.1%, an increase of 0.5% from the previous year, achievement rates across races vary, according to data from the Florida Department of Education.
In Miami-Dade public schools, for example, 98.6% of Asian students graduated on time, compared with 93.6% of white students, 92.9% of Native American students, 90.9% of Hispanic students and 85.6% of Black students. There was no data for Native Hawaiian students in the district.
Many leaders, including Dotres, have cited the pandemic as one cause for student learning loss. But disparities in Miami-Dade existed before then, too.
In the 2018-19 school year, only 40% of Black students in grades 3 through 10 passed the FSA English language arts exam, compared with 61% of Hispanic students and 77% of white students. For the math FSA exam, the results were only slightly better, with 44% of Black students passing, compared with passing rates of 63% among Hispanic students and 78% of white students.
Dotres’ contract
Dotres’ two-year contract begins Monday and is to last through February 2024 with the potential to continue through the end of the school year in June. He’ll earn an annual salary of $370,000.
The contract, which was finalized Wednesday, also includes a monthly supplement of $900 to cover work-related expenses such as travel, a car and a cellphone.
Dotres most recently was the deputy superintendent of Collier County Public Schools, where he served for about a year. Previously, he was Miami-Dade schools’ chief human capital officer and earned an annual salary of $191,538.
Dotres, a product of Miami-Dade schools, has said he is coming back to his hometown to serve students, teachers and school learners.
This story was originally published February 14, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
