Superintendent of nation’s second-largest school district on paid leave after FBI searches of his home and office
Los Angeles School Superintendent Alberto Carvalho is being placed on paid leave while he is part of a federal investigation. The action Friday by the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education comes two days after the FBI executed search warrants at his home and district headquarters.
Authorities did not provide details on the nature of the investigation, which involves the nation’s second-largest school district, serving more than 500,000 students.
Carvalho became superintendent in 2022. He previously ran public schools in Miami.
The district said Andres Chait, chief of school operations, will take over while Carvalho is on leave.
Carvalho did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI also searched a third location near Miami on Wednesday. The Miami Herald reported that the Florida property was owned by Debra Kerr, who previously worked with AllHere, an education technology company that had contracts with Los Angeles schools before the collapse and whose leader was accused of fraud. He could not be reached for comment Thursday.
In 2024, Carvalho touted a deal with AllHere for an AI chatbot called “Ed” designed to help students. But about three months after introducing the technology and paying the company $3 million, the district abandoned its agreements with AllHere, which was headed for bankruptcy. Months later, founder Joanna Smith-Griffin was charged with identity theft, as well as securities and wire fraud.
The school district said in a statement Wednesday that it was “cooperating with the investigation and we do not have any further information at this time.”
Carvalho denied personal involvement in AllHere’s selection, according to the Los Angeles Times. After Smith-Griffin was charged, Carvalho said he would appoint a task force to examine what went wrong with the Los Angeles school district project, but there has been no public announcement on the matter since then.
Kerr, an education technology salesperson who connects companies with schools, said he was never paid $630,000 in commissions for his work closing the AllHere deal with the Los Angeles area, according to the news outlet The 74, which covered the company’s 2024 bankruptcy hearings.
74 reported that Kerr has long-standing ties with Carvalho dating back to his time running the Florida district, and that his son, who works for AllHere, presented the technology to school leaders in Los Angeles after taking over there. The Associated Press could not reach Kerr for comment.
Over the past five years in Los Angeles, Carvalho has been praised for improvements in the district’s academic performance. He received similar accolades while leading Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Florida’s largest school district, where the national superintendents association named him Superintendent of the Year in 2014.
Spain knighted the Portuguese-born administrator in 2021 for his work expanding Spanish programs for Miami-Dade County schools.
Months later, Carvalho accepted the post in California and harshly criticized the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on immigrants, especially after last year’s raids in Los Angeles.
Carvalho arrived in Los Angeles at a critical moment; While the district was flush with funds from state and federal Covid-19 relief money, it was still struggling with the effects of the pandemic, including learning losses and declining enrollment. He previously clashed with Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis over his order that schools not require masks during the pandemic.
The Miami-Dade school system said in a statement that it was aware of the investigation involving Carvalho but had no comment at this time.
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