HISD board may start national search for superintendent
Houston ISD trustees could vote Thursday to begin the search for a permanent superintendent to replace Richard Carranza, who abruptly left the district in March.
Board members are scheduled to consider and possibly approve retaining Illinois-based firm Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates for an immediate superintendent search, according to a public meeting notice. The documents do not outline parameters or timelines for the potential search.
Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates has conducted more than 400 superintendent searches, including the 2016 search that ended with HISD hiring Carranza, formerly the superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District. The firm likely would conduct the new search for free, with the exception of some unspecified expenses, because Carranza left HISD before completing two years in the district.
Carranza arrived in HISD in August 2016, pledging to bring greater equity and a more inclusive atmosphere to the nation’s seventh-largest school district. Eighteen months later, he stunned the city by announcing
he had accepted a job to become chancellor of New York City public schools, the largest district in the country. Carranza officially resigned at the end of March.
HISD trustees voted to elevate then-chief academic officer Grenita Lathan to interim superintendent. Trustees Wanda Adams, Jolanda Jones and Rhonda Skillern-Jones have endorsed or all-but-endorsed permanently keeping Lathan, but the school board’s six other trustees have advocated a national search or have been noncommittal about retaining Lathan.
Some trustees advocated for delaying the superintendent search until after mid-August, when the district learned whether it would be subject to sanctions — including possible state takeover of the district’s school board — tied to chronically low academic performance at four campuses. HISD ultimately avoided that threat when all four schools met state academic standards in 2018.
The Thursday meeting notice recommends HISD’s board authorize its lawyers to negotiate a contract for the second search with Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates. HISD’s search in 2016 lasted about five months before trustees named Carranza as the district’s lone finalist. Carranza received a three-year contract with an annual salary of about $345,000.
Thursday’s meeting is scheduled for 8 p.m. at the Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center. The board agenda includes time for members of the public to address trustees about items under consideration.