‘HS’ SWEETHEARTS
Carranza shacks up with ex-DOE official
Former Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza has left his wife for an administrator he had brought from Houston to New York City for a sixfigure Department of Education job.
Raquel Sosa, who quit the DOE last week, and Carranza now list the same luxury high-rise condo in San Antonio as their current address, records show.
Their relationship appears to confirm a complaint that Carranza used his powerful position to favor pals. City school investigators never touched the complaint.
In December 2018, eight months after Carranza became chancellor, his administration named Sosa, a Houston elementary-school principal, “senior director of ELL [English language learner] newcomers and students in temporary housing” with a $149,000 salary.
In October 2019, Sosa got a new position as “senior director for development, support and implementation in the Office of Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Learning,” officials said. Sosa’s salary increased to $156,274 in 2020.
She worked remotely until mid-July. Her last day was Aug. 31, said DOE spokeswoman Katie O’Hanlon.
Carranza quit his $363,346-a-year chancellor job in March after leading the nation’s largest school system for nearly three years. He said he had to mourn loved ones lost to COVID-19. He promptly took a job with an ed-tech vendor with millions of dollars in DOE contracts.
Last week, Carranza and Sosa each changed their Facebook profile pictures to the same cheek-to-cheek photo of themselves.
Carranza, 54, makes no secret of their romance. He has commented on photos of Sosa, 47, with remarks such as “Absolutely gorgeous mi vida !!!! ” On Aug. 12, when Sosa posted a video of a mariachi concert, Carranza wrote, “Thank you for joining me, mi amor. Te amo.”
Sosa met Carranza when he served as Houston’s school superintendent. Formerly Sosa-Gonzalez, she was already divorced when she moved from Texas to New York City. Carranza was married. His wife, Monique, filed for divorce in Brooklyn Supreme Court in August 2020 and moved back to California while he remained on the job in the city. They have two children. She did not return calls. The divorce is not final, according to court records.
The hiring of Sosa and two friends of Carranza from California, where he was San Francisco’s schools superintendent, prompted a complaint in early 2019 to the Special Commissioner of Investigation for New York City schools.
A whistleblower letter said DOE put them on the payroll in 2018 “at the direction of Chancellor Carranza” without advertising the openings, as it usually did, and without interviewing other candidates.
At the time, Carranza called the criticism a form of bias against him as “a man of color.”
The SCI said last week that the case had been closed and “no further information is available.” A spokeswoman refused to say whether SCI investigated the case, or why it was closed. She said Mayor de Blasio had no influence on its decisions.
Another woman named in the complaint to SCI, Martha Martin, was a San Francisco teacher who met Carranza when he was that city’s schools superintendent. Hired by the DOE in October 2018, she was named associate director for community and family empowerment in the Division of Multilingual Learners, with a $119,587 salary. Martin resigned in October 2019, the DOE said. A spokeswoman gave no reason.
Also named was Abram Jimenez, then vice president of Illuminate Education, a California ed-tech firm doing business with New York City schools. He was named “executive director of continuous school improvement,” a newly created title that no longer exists. Jimenez quit that $205,416-a-year job in July 2019 as The Post prepared to reveal he held stock in Illuminate Education.
Carranza and Sosa did not respond to requests for comment.