HISD Superintendent Richard Carranza To Resign; Report

HOUSTON, TX — Houston ISD Superintendent Richard Carranza will reportedly resign from his current position to become Chancellor of the New York City school system.

Carranza will succeed Chancellor Carmen Fariña, who is preparing to step down this month, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday at a news conference.

Mayor de Blasio called Carranza an "educator's educator" who drove up test scores and graduation rates and narrowed gaps in achievement among disadvantaged students in four years as superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District.

After taking the helm in Houston in August 2016, Carranza led Texas' largest school district through the disaster of Hurricane Harvey last year, reopening schools in September, just two weeks after historic flooding struck the city.

"Richard, in everything he's done, has been devoted to children, and he has been a change agent through his work," de Blasio said Monday at a City Hall news conference.

More recently, HISD is facing a $115 million budget shortfall for the 2018-19 school year for a variety of reasons, most notably Hurricane Harvey recapture, lower student enrollment and paying money back to the state for the "Robin Hood" law.

Carranza took over in Houston during August 2016 after leading the San Francisco schools four years.

Houston ISD is the seventh-largest district in the nation with 214,000 students. The system in New York City has 1.1 million students, the New York Times reported.

Image: HISD Superintendent Richard Carranza, right, and HISD Board of Education President Wanda Adams, hug while surveying the damage from floodwaters at A.G. Hilliard Elementary School in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)