Miami’s Superintendent Search: Bringing the Public into Public Education
The School Board of Miami-Dade County
Founded in 1885, Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) is the nation's fourth largest school district. M-DCPS serves over 328,000 students and is the number one employer in the county. The M-DCPS Superintendent manages a more than $7 billion budget, directs academic and operational priorities, and offers solutions to the complex issues facing our students and educators today.
On December 9, 2021, the Miami community learned that Superintendent Alberto Carvalho intends to step down from his position. The nine-member M-DCPS School Board is now tasked with hiring the next superintendent. The most important responsibility of any Board of Education is the selection of its superintendent and many models exist for conducting a search for a new superintendent.
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To:
The School Board of Miami-Dade County
From:
[Your Name]
School Board of Miami-Dade County Public Schools:
We want to know what’s important to you, and we are writing to share some issues of importance to us as a Miami-Dade County community.
As the School Board of Miami-Dade County Public Schools embarks upon the journey to find a qualified candidate to meet the diverse needs of our community, we would like the following assurances for an accessible and transparent search process:
- Conduct all aspects of the candidate recruitment process on a statewide, regional and national basis.
- Offer multiple mechanisms for gathering community and educator input and voice, and ensure stakeholders are aware of how to appropriately exercise their voices
with reasonable notice.
- Ensure an impartial and objective consensus-building framework to assist in determining final candidates. In furtherance of this goal, we recommend that the School board convene a Community Advisory Committee with representatives from the student body, support staff, teachers, administrators, senior citizens, organized labor, minority organizations, and parents.
- Publish, and regularly update stakeholders, on all aspects of the planning and hiring process.
We also acknowledge that there may already be community consensus gathering processes in place for a superintendent search of which we are unaware. If this is the case, we request that the community be made aware of said processes and the mechanisms for involvement. We bring these requests forward in good faith and a belief that we all want what is best for Miami-Dade County stakeholders. We look forward to having an opportunity to support this crucial effort.
Please send any responses or correspondences to: hello@ps305.org