Miami Superintendent Backs Out of New York City Schools Job
March 2, 2018 by admin
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It was an embarrassing turn of events for the de Blasio administration, which appeared to be caught off guard and at first reacted with anger.
“Who would ever hire this guy again?” Eric Phillips, the mayor’s press secretary, said on Twitter. “Who would ever vote for him?”
Mr. de Blasio, not 24 hours earlier, had called the superintendent “the best person to lead the nation’s largest school system into the future.”
The pick seemed almost too good to be true — and, apparently, it was. Mr. Carvalho came to the United States from Portugal at 17 and overstayed his visa. He said he was homeless for a time and had slept in a friend’s U-Haul. He became a physics teacher, then rose up the ranks in Miami-Dade education. A charismatic presence, he speaks at least four languages: Portuguese, English, Spanish and French. He seemed well poised to hone Mr. de Blasio’s education agenda and pitch it to the public.
It did not work out that way.
Bafflement over what prompted his sudden about-face lingered throughout the day. New Yorkers — including Mr. de Blasio — grappled with how Mr. Carvalho could have so abruptly changed his mind, turning down one of the most prestigious and high-profile jobs in education more than a week after accepting it.
“My first response was just profound surprise,” the mayor said at a news conference on Thursday. As late as an 8 p.m. call on Wednesday, he said, “All systems were go.”
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Dave Sanders for The New York Times
Mr. de Blasio added, “He told me repeatedly this was his dream job.”
Mr. Carvalho gave little explanation except to describe an emotional decision driven in part by phone conversations with two students who were undocumented immigrants. They told him, “I don’t know what my future will look like if you leave,” he said. “If I were to leave those two, I’m probably leaving everything I believe in.”
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In Miami, where he has flirted with running for Congress, he was an influential figure with broad appeal. The day’s love fest was a clear reminder of that, and in Miami-Dade County the school chief has greater prominence than in New York. People in Miami who have followed his career wondered whether being thrust into the glare of the New York media, and the prospect of close scrutiny, had dampened his enthusiasm.
Ten years ago, Mr. Carvalho was involved in a scandal in which leaked emails led to speculation he was having an affair with a reporter who covered education. Mr. Carvalho’s spokeswoman in Miami said that had no bearing on his decision.
New York City is the largest school system in the country, with 1.1 million students and a budget of $30 billion, larger than the gross domestic product of some countries. Nonetheless, many educators and observers warned that Mr. de Blasio might have a difficult time attracting top talent to continue the work of Carmen Fariña, who plans to retire as chancellor, rather than someone with the freedom to cut a bold new vision. She was expected to stay through March.
Thursday’s spectacle is likely to make replacing her that much more difficult.
“How embarrassing!” said George Arzt, a veteran political consultant who was a press secretary to Mayor Edward I. Koch. “In the past there are people who have pulled out of jobs they’ve been appointed to, but I don’t remember any job as prominent as schools chancellor. But it’s certainly shocking, and they have to renew their search and find someone very quickly.”
Mr. Arzt added, “The problem is that the new person will be viewed as the second choice.”
The courtship of Mr. Carvalho went on for more than a month. Mr. Phillips said Mr. Carvalho met with the mayor twice at Gracie Mansion, once in January and once in February. Mr. de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, who routinely participates in City Hall hiring decisions, was deeply involved in the interview process as well.
Mr. Carvalho told Mr. de Blasio that he would take the job last week, Mr. Phillips said, and it seemed that the matchmaking had ended. But an announcement was postponed at least once when Mr. Carvalho said that he could not leave his district because of gun scares and jitters in the aftermath of the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which is in a neighboring district. Mr. Phillips said an announcement was scheduled for Monday and then scratched, and the same for Thursday.
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On Wednesday, the news media in New York were told that Mr. Carvalho would be the new chancellor. Mr. de Blasio said that Mr. Carvalho agreed that City Hall could give word of the announcement to the news site Politico. But officials in Miami warned caution, saying that he had not made a public statement yet, so perhaps it was not final.
A measure of panic began to set in at New York’s City Hall on Wednesday night, after the initial news reports and indications that Mr. Carvalho appeared to be getting cold feet, according to someone familiar with the matter. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations in City Hall.
Late into the evening, phone calls went back and forth between New York and Miami. At one point, at least one senior administration official spoke by phone with Mr. Carvalho, who reiterated the promise he had made about taking the job, according to the person. Mr. Carvalho did not suggest he was backing out of the job on Wednesday, the person said, but instead offered logistical and other reasons for remaining in Florida that day.
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At Thursday’s board meeting in Miami, speaker after speaker lavished praise on Mr. Carvalho for preventing budget cuts to the arts, advocating on behalf of immigrants and stabilizing a school district that before his tenure had been notorious for political upheaval.
After bathing in more than two hours of praise, Mr. Carvalho spoke, and then he asked for several breaks. As he disappeared off the stage for a few moments, the crowd in the room, which had been resigned to his leaving, started to wonder whether he might stay. Those breaks turned out to be attempts to speak to Mr. de Blasio. He eventually reached him.
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The conversation, Mr. Carvalho said, was not easy.
“This is probably the second most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life. The very first one was to leave my country,” he said. “I am breaking an agreement between adults to honor an agreement and a pact I have with the children of Miami.”
In Florida, the audience roared. In New York City, mouths dropped.
Mr. Carvalho left the dais to a mob of well-wishers who offered him hugs, handshakes and kisses on the cheek.
As theatrical it was, this was not Mr. Carvalho’s first public flirtation with professional indecision. In 2008, he was offered two superintendent jobs nearly simultaneously, in Miami-Dade and Pinellas County. The Pinellas County school board offered him the job first, but the same day, the Miami-Dade board ousted its superintendent, Rudy Crew. They asked Mr. Carvalho if he would take the superintendent job on an interim basis, but, with an offer in hand, he said no. In a chaotic meeting, the board voted to offer him the job permanently.
Mr. Carvalho then took two days to decide, saying that he was “soul-searching” and that he wanted to “honor the process” by speaking with the chairs of each board. In the end, he took the job in Miami-Dade, where he was offered a higher salary, though he said that was not a factor.
New York City officials said they would match his $352,874 Miami salary, going much higher than the salary of the current New York City chancellor, who earns $234,569.
A savvy operator with years of experience in the school district’s communications and governmental affairs office, Mr. Carvalho is known to speak in perfectly quotable sound bites. But he has also proven to be prickly when asked about personal shortcomings, including the possible affair with the former reporter. A media frenzy over his personal life would have been unavoidable as chancellor.
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Mr. Carvalho has long held higher aspirations, including becoming United States secretary of education, and being chancellor in New York might have gotten him closer to that dream. He said Thursday he knew staying in Miami-Dade was perhaps not his best career move. “I hope I don’t come to regret” the decision, he said.
Remaining appears likely to give him more control over the nine-member school board, which had recently started to question him more than in years past. His local stature will only grow if he is perceived as having sacrificed personal gain to remain superintendent.
Mr. Carvalho acknowledged telling Mr. de Blasio that he had accepted the job. His close friends had advised him to leave “on top, when things are good,” in Miami-Dade.
“When I walked into the room today, I was going to New York City,” Mr. Carvalho said.
He changed his mind in a “real-time decision,” he said. “I understand how unorthodox this is.”
When he finally reached Mr. de Blasio by phone, Mr. Carvalho said the mayor told him he’d been watching the Miami-Dade meeting, which was streaming online. Mr. Carvalho called the conversation “difficult and a little sad,” but also professional.
Asked about the tweet by Mr. de Blasio’s press secretary questioning who would want to hire — or vote — for him after reneging on his word to New York, Mr. Carvalho said, “I accept that.”
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Mother and four children found dead in West Brookfield home
March 2, 2018 by admin
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WEST BROOKFIELD — Four children and a mother were found dead inside a home on Old Warren Road in West Brookfield Thursday, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the case.
The official said the victims had suffered from “burn type” injuries when their bodies were discovered. The official requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
Another official briefed on the case said a police officer found the bodies after a man who lives at the residence called police and requested a well-being check.
The man told police he was calling from California, the official said.
Police saw evidence that several fires had been lit at the home, but the fires burned out on their own, the official said.
Authorities were waiting Thursday night for a search warrant to enter the home and process the crime scene, the law enforcement official said.
Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. is leading the investigation. His office could not be reached for comment.
A large crime scene was established around the white, single-story home, which is surrounded by woods in a neighborhood off Route 9. The Central Massachusetts town is located about 20 miles west of Worcester.
Yellow police tape was stretched from utility poles to trees outside the home and dangled from the legs of a picnic table. Flood lights lit the yard of the home, while ambulances and police and fire department vehicles lined Old Warren Road and overflowed into the parking lot of Northeast Pizza across the street.
West Brookfield Police, the state fire marshal’s office and Massachusetts State Police deferred comment to Early’s office.
Local and State Police responded to a “major incident” on Old Warren Road, West Brookfield police tweeted around 5:30 p.m. The road, located between Route 9 and Laurel Street, was closed to traffic.
The police activity drew several residents to the scene.
Sandi Wenzel, who lives about a quarter of a mile away, said she was saddened to learn of the grim discovery inside the home.
“I used to see the little girls get off the bus and they were adorable,” she said by telephone Thursday night. “It’s horrible.”