A former superintendent, but Carvalho still a VIP at Miami International Airport

Alberto Carvalho may have departed the Miami-Dade County school system for Los Angeles, but he’s still treated as a county VIP when he’s back in town.

The former schools chief, who left Miami-Dade last month to take the L.A. superintendent job, appears to have retained at least one local perk of his old post: escorts through security at the county-owned Miami International Airport.

A Naked Politics reader spotted him being whisked through the line on Monday morning at MIA, and an Aviation Department spokesperson confirmed Carvalho was approved last week for the kind of VIP escorts that Miami-Dade provides foreign dignitaries and local officials.

Escorts are handled by the airport’s Protocol and International Affairs Office, and they arrange for VIP travel through MIA for dozens of people a week.

For the first week of March, that included Dean Barrow, a former prime minister of Belize; Miami-Dade Commissioner Javier Souto; United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres; and new Miami-Dade Superintendent Jose Dotres.

The Carvalho request came from Carvalho’s former scheduler in the superintendent’s office, Cristina Perez-Ibanez. She wrote from a personal email address on Tuesday asking the Procotol Office for help with the former superintendent’s Friday arrival on a flight from Washington and on a Sunday flight back to Los Angeles.

“Good afternoon, I hope all is well with you and your family. Mr. Carvalho will need your assistance for the following,” Perez-Ibanez wrote to a Protocol administrator on March 1, listing the scheduled flight times. “Please let me know if this is possible. Thank you!”

Aviation spokesperson Greg Chin said that while the airport’s Protocol guidelines don’t list superintendents from other big cities as eligible for escorts, MIA can consider special requests based on available staffing. He said MIA was able to accommodate the Carvalho request, which he described as coming from the school system.

“Public Schools staff made the request to our staff by email,” Chin wrote.

Jaquelyn Calzadilla, spokesperson for the school system, said the Carvalho request did not come from Miami-Dade Public Schools “or by any employee working in their official capacity with this school system.” She said Perez-Ibanez is no longer in the superintendent’s office, and is on leave. In a text message to Naked Politics, Perez-Ibanez said she sent the request “during off hours and never indicated it was being done on behalf of the school district.”

In an interview before he left for California, Carvalho said he and his wife, Maria, are keeping their longtime home in Miami for return visits.

This trip appeared to hit some logistical challenges, since the Protocol schedule showed a Sunday night departure for Carvalho back to Los Angeles but he wasn’t seen moving through MIA security until Monday morning.

In a text message to Naked Politics, Carvalho said he didn’t actually request the Monday morning escort.

“Literally ran into a staffer I knew who was escorting a large group at TSA check and was willing to help me as I was rescheduled on a new flight after a significant delay,” he wrote. “An act of kindness.”

This post was updated to correct some details about who made the request for a county escort at Miami International Airport for former schools superintendent Alberto Carvalho.

This story was originally published March 8, 2022 at 2:18 PM.