Miami-Dade school board names two finalists for next superintendent

Education admin July 21, 2026 0 Comments

Miami-Dade school board names two finalists for next superintendent

The Miami-Dade school board is moving forward with a slate of two finalists to replace Superintendent Jose Dotres.

The board winnowed down its list from six semifinalists to two in a vote at a special meeting held Tuesday. It marks the latest step in the months-long process to find Dotres’ eventual replacement.

Both finalists have deep ties to South Florida. One is internal to the public school system and the other is an administrator in Broward County Public Schools.

The finalists are Ernie Lozano, Broward County Public Schools chief human resources officer and Rafael Villalobos, MDCPS’ south region superintendent.

To decide the finalists, the board took a vote among its eight members on each of the six semifinalists individually to advance them. Those with a majority of the members’ approval were moved forward as finalists.

Lozano got “yes” votes from six members of the board, with only District 2 Board Member Dr. Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall and District 4 Board Member Roberto Alonso registering “no” votes.

Villalobos got “yes” votes from all eight board members.

Dotres’ chief of staff, Jose Bueno, almost made the list. Four board members, including Board Chair Mari Tere Rojas, Alonso, Bendross-Mindingall and District 9 Board Member Luisa Santos voted for him. The other board members did not.

Two semifinalists, Sylvia Mitchell and Carlos Perez, only registered one “yes” vote from a board member.

Christopher Ruszkowski, a former secretary of education for New Mexico who is now overseeing the state of Texas’ takeovers of a large school district and charter school network, got three “yes” votes from Santos, Alonso and District 5 Board Member Danny Espino.

Either Villalobos or Lozano could be named superintendent as early as next week. Board members voted on July 29 as the date for public interviews as well as a final selection.

After the votes were tallied, one board member, Alonso, wanted to go ahead and name Villalobos as “superintendent designate” at the meeting. No board member seconded his motion.

Earlier, Alonso also brought up the idea of adding on Deputy Superintendent Michael Lewis as a finalist for the role. Lewis did not apply, but Alonso suggested he might be a qualified candidate.

“We have an incredible list here of candidates, and after going through this list I’ve always had one name of one individual that I thought would be on this list… That is Dr. Lewis,” Alonso said.

Alonso’s comment was only for discussion and did not come with a motion for action. Board members agreed Lewis was highly qualified, but several said they didn’t see the need to make him a finalist at this point in the process.

Santos said she was “disappointed” with how slim the list of finalist candidates was, expressing a desire for a broader pool of candidates to interact with the public in their finalist interviews.

“At this point, the public has not seen any of the candidates respond to public questions… I would have liked to see a greater number of finalists answering questions in front of the public,” Santos said.

This story will be updated.

This story was originally published July 21, 2026 at 3:53 PM.