Mayor Turner Stresses Importance Of HISD Interim Superintendent

HOUSTON, TX — Richard Carranza and the New York mayor placed calls to Houston Sylvester Turner today in the wake of news breaking Carranza would resign as the Houston ISD superintendent.

Carranza will leave HISD after just 18 months to become the Chancellor of New York City Schools. Turner acknowledges the importance of not only searching for a great replacement for Carranza, but working with the interim superintendent.

"I received phone calls today from Richard Carranza and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio," Turner said. "I wished the superintendent well, and I told Mayor de Blasio that I believe he is getting a very capable superintendent. Now, we must focus on HISD’s situation.

“HISD is our largest school district not only in the city but also in the state, and it’s important for its trustees to put in place a very capable interim leader as we navigate through the challenges the district is facing. It’s clear the city cannot move forward unless our school districts are moving forward and providing a quality education to all our children. I will be glad to work closely with the interim superintendent as well as the board to make sure we are doing the very best for our schools, our children and the people in the city of Houston.”

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: Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner addresses the U.S. Conference of Mayors 86th annual Winter Meeting at the Capitol Hilton January 25, 2018 in Washington, DC. The non-partisan conference of mayors from cities with populations of 300,000 or larger meet annually in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)