New Miami-Dade schools chief proposes cabinet shake-up, administrator demotions

New Miami-Dade Superintendent Rafael Villalobos is seeking to make big changes to his cabinet.

Read more How a donkey named Eloise became a symbol in the fight against Florida data centers

Rolling out a series of high-level staff moves that he says will save the district more than $1 million, Villalobos that demotes several high-ranking public school officials, installs new cabinet chiefs and shuffles around several administrative staff.

Villalobos is bringing in and promoting several people to fill some of the district’s top roles.

Eric Acosta, currently an administrative director in the school district’s Central Region, is Villalobos’ pick to serve as his new chief of staff.

In addition to individual shifts, the reorganization will add some heft to the chief of staff position by putting the Office of Communications and the Office of Strategic Planning under its umbrella.

Jose Bueno, who was chief of staff under former Superintendent Jose Dotres and applied for the role this year, was last month.

The agenda item states that the district will save $1.6 million as a result of the overall reshuffling. In all, 14 positions total will be eliminated. A district spokesperson did not immediately respond to a question about whether those positions were filled or open, or whether the $1.6 million represents actual savings or budgeted savings.

The school board will vote on the full reorganization plan at next week’s Wednesday meeting. The agenda item, as well as another , is subject to change until then.

In addition to the chief of staff role, other major administrative staff changes are being proposed.

Read more FL immigration contracts quietly surged to $1.4B in disaster dollars

Lisette Alves is returning to the district to become the chief academic officer. She recently worked in the private sector as a consultant. Previously, when she was an administrator in the same department during the COVID-19 pandemic, the department caught flack for utilizing a virtual learning platform that frequently crashed.

Iraida Mendez-Cartaya, another former senior district official, would return from Miami-Dade County government, where she is currently chief of staff for District 13 Commissioner Rene Garcia, to become the district’s chief financial officer. Mendez-Cartaya would replace Margarita Betancourt, the interim CFO who would move to the role of treasurer.

Dennis Carmona, an administrative director, would become the new chief human capital officer under the plan.

Cabinet heads Lourdes Diaz, who leads academics, and top HR official Dawn Baglos would move to administrative director roles in the plan.

Rene Mantilla, an assistant superintendent over the office of post-secondary, career and technical education, moves into a principal role. Same goes for Magda Pereira, who currently helps lead the district’s magnet program.

In placing the Office of Communications and Strategic Planning department under the chief of staff, the plan would also demote the top officials over those departments down one pay grade.

Villalobos also : the upper bound of the highest pay grade below superintendent would move from $225,000 to $259,000.

Read more ‘Slap in the face’: Firefighters union blast Hialeah proposal after historic police deal

This story was originally published September 4, 2026 at 5:35 PM.