The new CEO of Chicago Public Schools is a product of the district he now helms. Pedro Martinez, by his own account, rose through the system where he got his own education by starting in 2003 as a budget director. Five years later, he was promoted to CPS’ chief financial officer and subsequently was charged with supervising a network of schools on the West Side. Today, he is the district’s first Latin CEO. Martinez was the first in his family to graduate from college and chose to dedicate his life to education.
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John Stanford steps into the role of superintendent of Allentown School District in Ohio on Nov. 15. A senior chief officer in the Columbus school district, Stanford previously held positions such as deputy superintendent, interim superintendent and chief operating officer over the past 15 years. As interim superintendent, he started a project called “Level Up” that resulted in an 81% graduation rate that year, up 3% from when he started.
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The Champlain Valley School District in Vermont recently welcomed Rene Sanchez as its new superintendent. Hired this summer, Sanchez told the Williston Observer he was drawn to the district because of its support of diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as its commitment to personalized learning. Sanchez previously held the post of assistant superintendent in South Bend, Ind., and before that was principal of CÁ©sar E. ChÁ¡vez High School in Houston.
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Previous superintendent of the Gresham-Barlow School District in Portland, Ore., Dr. Angela Katrise Perera has taken over the post of superintendent of the much-larger Lancaster Independent School District in Texas. Upon accepting the job, Perera said she is excited to be the district’s first female superintendent and that doing so in a state she “considers home” is a gift. During Perera’s tenure at Gresham-Barlow, graduation rates rose, new career and technical programs were established, and a dual language immersion curriculum was launched.
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Lucretia Brown, a former deputy superintendent in Pennsylvania, will serve as Virginia’s Prince William County School’s new Chief Equity Officer. Brown comes from Allentown, Pa., where she had been working as deputy superintendent for equity, accountability and school improvement in the Allentown School District. In her new role, Brown will lead the Division’s equity efforts and “sustain a culture of equity and inclusion for all students to eliminate the disproportionality between students’ groups within the highest and lowest achievement categories,” a school division press release said.
