Los Angeles school superintendent placed on paid leave amid federal investigation – The Mercury News
By JAIMIE DING and JULIE WATSON
Los Angeles (AP) – Los Angeles schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho was placed on paid leave Friday, two days after the FBI executed search warrants at his home and district headquarters.
Authorities have not provided details on the nature of the investigation involving the nation’s second-largest school district, which serves more than 500,000 students, and have not accused Carvalho of any wrongdoing.
The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education voted unanimously to place Carvalho on leave pending the outcome of the investigation after two days of closed-door deliberations.
Carvalho became superintendent in 2022. He previously led public schools in Miami.
Andres Chait, the school’s chief operating officer, will take over while Carvalho is on leave, the district said.
“Our focus remains clear: to ensure stability, continuity, and strong leadership for our students, families and staff,” Chait said in a statement.
Carvalho has not responded to a request for comment. The FBI on Wednesday also searched a third location near Miami. The Miami Herald reported that the Florida site is owned by Debra Kerr, who once worked with AllHere, an education technology company that contracted with Los Angeles schools before it collapsed and its leader was indicted for fraud.
In 2024, Carvalho made a deal with AllHere for an AI chat called “Ed” designed to help students. But about three months after unveiling the technology and paying the company $3 million, the district ended its partnership with AllHere, which collapsed. Months later, founder Joanna Smith-Griffin was charged with fraud and wire fraud, as well as identity theft.
The school district said in a statement Wednesday that it is “cooperating with the investigation and does not have any further information at this time.”
Carvalho denied personal involvement in the selection of AllHere, according to the Los Angeles Times. After Smith-Griffin was indicted, Carvalho said he would appoint a task force to investigate what went wrong with the LA school district project, but there have been no public announcements about it since.
Kerr, an education technology vendor that connects companies and schools, said he was never paid his $630,000 commission for his work closing the AllHere deal with LA County, according to the news organization, 74, which covered the company’s 2024 bankruptcy hearing.
74 reported that Kerr had a long relationship with Carvalho from the time he was in charge of the Florida state and that his son who worked for AllHere put the expertise to the LA school leaders after he took over there. The Associated Press could not reach Kerr for comment.
In the past five years in Los Angeles, Carvalho has been praised for the district’s improvement in academic excellence. He received similar acclaim while overseeing Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Florida’s largest school district, where a national superintendent’s association named him Superintendent of the Year in 2014.
Spain recognizes the Portuguese-born administrator in 2021 for his work expanding Spanish language programs in Miami-Dade County schools.
Months later, Carvalho took the job in California and became a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, especially following the raids in Los Angeles last year.
Carvalho arrived in Los Angeles at a critical time, as the district found itself receiving state and federal COVID-19 relief funding but still struggling with the effects of the pandemic, including learning loss and declining enrollment. He previously fell out with Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis over his order that schools not require masks during times of violence.
The Miami-Dade school system in a statement said it was aware of the investigation involving Carvalho but had no comment at this time.
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Watson reported from San Diego.
