Miami-Dade School Board delays Carvalho contract vote
A week after naming Alberto Carvalho the new schools chief, the Miami-Dade School Board still has not agreed on the details of his contract.
New Miami-Dade schools chief Alberto Carvalho presided over his first School Board meeting Wednesday, sitting comfortably in the superintendent’s chair at the end of the dais.
He did so without a contract.
Less than an hour before the meeting was set to begin, the item to discuss his employment agreement was removed from the agenda.
”Basically, we just finished finalizing the agreement,” Chairman Agustín Barrera told The Miami Herald before the meeting started.
“The board hasn’t had time to see it.”
Details of the contract — including pay and duration — have not been made public.
The School Board named Carvalho its pick for superintendent last Wednesday.
He accepted the job Friday, turning down an offer to become the top schools official in Pinellas County.
But in the past week, questions have emerged regarding intimate e-mails purportedly exchanged between Carvalho and a former Miami Herald schools reporter and the haste in which the board chose Carvalho.
Barrera said the decision to not take up the contract had nothing to do with the controversies; the board will likely do so later this month, he said.
Because the item had been pulled from the agenda, the board voted 4-3 against allowing members of the public to speak on the topic.
Normally, people are allowed to sign up in advance to speak to the board on a particular issue. They are given two minutes.
On the topic of Carvalho, two people had officially signed up: Helen Williams, a former candidate for mayor of Miami-Dade County, and David Marin.
Parent Charles Viscito also asked to be included, but was told he would not be able to speak because the item had been pulled.
”They didn’t want to hear, in public, what I had to say,” said Viscito, who has raised concerns about how the selection process played out.
“What they’re trying to do is play this out politically.”
While the board has been split on how Carvalho was chosen, there was universal approval of the need for more time to study his contract.
”I have not seen any draft,” said Vice Chairwoman Perla Tabares Hantman, who nominated Carvalho for the post.
“I don’t have any information about the present superintendent’s contract.”
Board member Marta Pérez raised different concerns. She suggested the board hold a workshop to work out a selection process for a new superintendent.
”If we stop and do it right, all the interested applicants will have an opportunity to apply. Mr. Carvalho will have time to clear up his good name,” Pérez said.
“The public will see us as trying to be as transparent as possible in the most important of our appointments.”
Board member Renier Diaz de la Portilla echoed her concerns, calling last week’s selection process “flawed.”
”I believe the process and the selection raised more questions than answers,” he said.
He suggested Carvalho work as an interim superintendent while an open search took place.
`THE RIGHT WAY’
”As we begin the next era, whether it be the Carvalho era or someone else’s, we have the opportunity to do it the right way,” he said.
But other board members were adamant that the process of selecting a superintendent was closed.
”I’m confident that the right decision was made,” Barrera said. “Unfortunately, the stars didn’t align for us to look at the contract [Wednesday].”
Seven of the nine sitting board members attended. Board member Ana Rivas Logan was traveling.
Outgoing board member Evelyn Greer has been seriously ill.
Later, Pérez began suggesting there be an investigation on whether the board had breached the spirit of the state Sunshine Law when it chose Carvalho as its leader.
The Sunshine Law requires meetings be open to the public and properly advertised.
Pérez was interrupted by board member Solomon Stinson, who called for the meeting to adjourn. His motion was seconded by Hantman and the meeting came to an abrupt end.
Pérez was still speaking.
As the group dismantled, a frustrated Diaz de la Portilla bemoaned: “Business as usual.”
In other business, the board:
• Approved a plan to move 27 principals and assistant principals to new schools within the district.
Among the school leaders with new assignments: Mark Soffian, principal at Miami Norland Senior, which has received an ”F” grade from the state two years in a row. Soffian will now become principal at Lake Stevens Middle.
Some of the changes, including the change at Norland, were mandated by the state as part of an effort to help lift failing schools.
OUTRAGED
Still, the decision to move Soffian has outraged some members of the North Miami community. Hoping to keep Soffian at Norland, students there complained to Carvalho and Florida Commissioner of Education Eric Smith.
Derick McKoy, principal at Lake Stevens Middle, will take over at Norland.
• Did not take up a proposal to name Maj. Arnie Weatherington the next chief of the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department.
Last week, the board defeated an item that would have transferred more than two dozen administrators and named Weatherington the top cop in the fifth-largest police department in Miami-Dade County.
But when the item came back to the board Wednesday, Weatherington’s promotion was no longer included.
Carvalho said the item had been ‘’streamlined” to deal with only those appointments that were urgent.
Cmdr. Charles Hurley has served as interim chief since former Chief Gerald Darling took a job with the Memphis, Tenn., public schools.
The original source of this article can be found at:
www.miamiherald.com / Thu, Sep. 18, 2008
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