Eight candidates for Miami schools superintendent met all criteria. Is that enough?

With 21 applicants to choose from, the Miami-Dade School Board kicked off the process of winnowing down that field to select a new superintendent at a special meeting Wednesday.

A preliminary analysis from the district showed eight candidates meet all the board’s minimum requirements, ten more were missing one or two requirements on their application and three candidates had even more that could not be verified.

According to a copy of the analysis shared with the Herald, eight candidates that met all the board’s requirements included two longtime, high-ranking officials in the public school system: Superintendent Jose Dotres’ Chief of Staff Jose Bueno and South Region Superintendent Rafael Villalobos.

The other six include:

• Jaime Cole, a former superintendent who is now a special education coach in Louisville, Kentucky.
• Linus Guillory, former superintendent of two high-performing school districts in the Boston area from 2019 to 2025.
• Broward County Public Schools Chief Human Resources Officer Ernie Lozano.
• Sylvia Mitchell, a former Miami charter school principal and charter school network executive in Texas.
• Jeffery Mosley, the Chief Schools Officer for Chicago Public Schools.
• Carlos Perez, a charter school principal in West Palm Beach and the former the executive director of the Education Reform Project, a nonprofit organization based in Miami Beach.

The second group of ten candidates lacking one or two requirements included some high-profile names.

Denver Public Schools Superintendent, who was a guidance counselor before becoming an assistant principal, did not appear to meet the board’s requirement of “public school classroom teaching experience or equivalent instructional experience.”

Christopher Ruszkowski, a former secretary of education for New Mexico who is now overseeing the state of Texas’ takeovers of a large school district and charter school network, was deemed to not have met the board’s requirement of “experience as a school principal.”

Others in the second group of candidates were:

• Samuel Bentsen, superintendent of a single-school district in the greater Chicago area, was not able to verify knowledge of “large complex systems.”
• Amanda Blatter, who has served as a school principal in the New York City for two decades, did not demonstrate “school district-wide experience.”
• Santarvis Brown, an administrator with South Florida experience and a primarily postsecondary background, did not verify three years of public school classroom experience or seven years of public school administrative experience.
• Taran Chun, former headmaster at a large private school system in Hawai’i, did not list at least three years of public school classroom experience or equivalent instructional experience.
• Corey Gardenhour, former superintendent for a small district in East Tennessee, did not meet the three years of classroom or instructional experience requirement.
• Angel Rivera, supreintendent of the Mesquite Independent School District in the Dallas, Texas area, did not meet the three years of classroom or instructional experience requirement.
• Christopher Spence, superintendent of Utica City Schools in New York, did not appear to meet the principal experience requirement.
• Shawn Thorpe, a consultant and administrator based in Washington, D.C., did not appear to meet the principal experience requirement.

Candidates found lacking three or more requirements were Latanya Collins, Desmond Moulton and Lidice Lascano.

Current Superintendent Jose Dotres was hired to lead the district Jan. 2022, replacing Alberto Carvalho. Dotres’ contract is scheduled to end Feb. 14, 2027.

Who will they consider?

Much of the board’s discussion Wednesday focused on whether they might consider someone in the second group — either their resume did not show they were fully qualified, or they’re missing one or two qualifications and a board member might want to advance them anyway — for the role.

Some members made it sound like they wouldn’t be inclined to go with a candidate who wasn’t in the first eight.

Board Chair Mari Tere Rojas said she feels “very strongly against” offering leeway on the minimum qualifications.

Both former educators, she and District 7 Board Member Mary Blanco likened it to a student not turning in their homework correctly.

“This might be the teacher in me, but if we made very clear what the qualifications are that we’re looking for. If your first assignment was turning in a resume where you left out information that was part of our minimum requirements, I’m sorry, I’m not moving you along,” Blanco said.

But other board members, like District 4’s Roberto Alonso, said they wouldn’t be opposed to considering someone who is short a requirement or two and in the “bucket two” of candidates.

“Maybe you jumped from assistant principal to region director — we’re going to disqualify you now because you did not have that? I think we should still interview that person. Maybe they don’t make it through the process, and it’s going to take a majority vote anyway, but I think it’s important that we just don’t disqualify bucket two,” Alonso said.

District 5 Board Member Danny Espino said that while he limited his consideration to the eight who were deemed to have met all the qualifications, he wouldn’t be opposed to allowing board members “to use one of (their) chips to advance somebody that may not qualify.” Blanco later expressed a similar sentiment, but added that a board member doing so might risk “losing” their pick.

After two hours of discussion and presentation, the timeline the board landed on for consideration of the candidates got extended a few days.

Per Espino’s suggestion, the timeline for selection is now:

• The group of candidates in “bucket two” will be vetted by June 29.
• Board members will send up to three picks to the board’s attorney by July 6, with each board member’s selections sent to the other members the day after.
• Background checks on the remaining candidates to be completed by July 17.
• Finalists selected by end of special board meeting held July 21.

Members did not address the exact date on which they plan to name the new superintendent, but a presentation from the search firm assisting the board listed Aug. 13 as the date by which they would be named.