HISD unanimously vote Richard A. Carranza as lone finalist for superintendent
HOUSTON (KTRK) -- The Houston ISD board voted unanimously on Thursday on the sole finalist for the superintendent job.
The district is expected to hire Richard A. Carranza from the San Francisco Unified School District. Hiring Carranza could take 21 days to be finalized, according to Texas law.
The news comes after the San Francisco school board told Eyewitness News that Carranza would be the finalist for the HISD superintendent's job.
Carranza has served as a teacher, principal and in other leadership posts before becoming the superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District in California.
"Board members said that they were particularly impressed with his background," said HISD spokesperson Jason Spencer. "Mr. Carranza is a former classroom teacher. He's a former principal. He's served in other large urban school districts serving students with similar backgrounds and challenges that our students face."
"The Houston Independent School District has earned a national reputation for innovation and academic achievement among all student groups," Carranza said. "I am honored that the Board of Education would consider me for the superintendent position. There are many challenges facing Houston's students, and I look forward to working with the community to build on Houston ISD's strengths."
Carranza would replace Terry Grier, who in February retired as superintendent of the HISD, which has about 215,000 students. A deputy superintendent and district chief financial officer, Ken Huewitt, has served as interim superintendent in Houston.
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HOW MUCH WILL HE MAKE? TED OBERG INVESTIGATES
Carranza's new job will come with huge new responsibilities. He will supervise a district with four times as many students, twice as many school campuses, three times as many staffers and $1.3 billion more in his budget.
He'll likely do all of it for a good salary, but not twice what he is making now.
HISD has a few weeks to finalize a deal with its new superintendent, so we don't know exactly how much he's going to make. But we've got a good idea it'll be somewhere close to what other HISD superintendents made in the past.
HISD's former boss, Terry Grier, made $300,000 in base salary but when you added in bonuses it topped half a million in his final year. Abelardo Saavedra, the Superintendent Grier replaced, made about $400,000 with bonuses. Kaye Stripling, the superintendent before Saavedra, earned about $300,000. It is a good trend line for Mr. Carranza who currently makes $300,000 a year in San Francisco.
No matter what Mr. Carranza is paid, two things are certain: It will be at least six times what a starting teacher makes at HISD and it will be a lot more, by the way, than some other big city school chiefs. New York City's chancellor makes $213,000. Los Angeles' superintendent earns $300,000 per year.
