School Board - Special Meeting

Good morning and welcome to the August 19th, 2026 special board meeting of the Miami-Dade County School Board. Please stand as board member Espino resets in the Pledge of Allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please pause for a moment of silent meditation. Thank you, you may be seated. Before we proceed with today's agenda, first of all, I'd like to take a moment of personal privilege to congratulate our Vice Chair, Monica Gallucci, who was re-elected as a school boar

Congratulations. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that, and thank you to everyone who has entrusted this great responsibility and privilege upon me. I'm truly appreciative, and I look forward to serving for four more years. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, and congratulations to the other board members that were also elected without opposition.

So before we proceed with today's agenda, I would like to acknowledge that school board member Luisa Santos is going to be participating again in this meeting virtually and through the communications media technology. At the special school board meeting on July 29th, 2026, the board approved board member Santos' request to participate and vote virtually pursuant to board policy 0165, participation and voting by board members at public board meetings through communications media technology in extraordinary circumstances. A physical quorum of the board is present in the meeting room and Member S

At this time, if there is anyone from the audience who would like to address agenda items SP1 and SP2 but has not signed up to speak yet, please go to the lobby counter outside the auditorium where staff is ready and available as well as happy to assist you. The board must approve additional speakers to agenda items by a majority vote. Do I hear a motion for approval of the supplemental list of speakers? Do I have a second? Yes. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed nay? Seeing none, motion passes. The list of the additional speakers will be distributed once completed. Ms. Yopes, are there an

I find good cause to vary from the established agenda pursuant to the reasons stated in the agenda item. The purpose of today's meeting is to review and consider approval of employment agreement for the next superintendent of schools and matters related to the comprehensive integrity-based selection and appointment process for the next superintendent of schools. Number one, review and consider approval of the execution of the proposed negotiated separation agreement for the current superintendent of schools, and two, establish and classify contracted position of senior transitional advisor to

Thank you very much. Then I will go ahead and present the item. Following a series of professional and constructive responsible discussions with Mr. Villalobos and his legal representatives, as well as our general counsel, I am happy to bring to my colleagues on the board the reached agreement on the terms and conditions of a tentative employment contract for the next MDCPS Superintendent of Schools, Mr. Rafael Villalobos. A copy of this agreement was forwarded to the board members by our general counsel, Mr. Harvey. The agreement reflects the collaborative efforts of all parties and incorpora

Okay, seeing none. Thank you, Madam Chair, I'd like to speak. Okay, yes, ma'am. Thank you so much and thank you for all the effort that you have put in into negotiating these contracts. I'm sure you've spent endless hours, so we're grateful for that. I did want to take a moment, which I was hoping to have a discussion on this earlier in the week, but obviously because of sunshine, we have to do this here and talk about one of the sections of the contract on evaluation. This agreement is thorough and clear, and you did a great job of including language in that section that says that the board a

Do I have a second? I do not have a second for that, so thank you for your input regardless, but we don't have a second, so I'm going to move on at this time. All right, yes sir, did you want to speak?

Thank you very much, sir. All right. Is that everyone? Okay, then I will now call on the board on a vote. Do I have a second? All in favor say aye.

Any opposed nay? Seeing none, motion passes. So congratulations to Mr. Villalobos, our new superintendent, incoming superintendent of schools as of the date that has been identified on the contract, which you all have. And so at this time, I would like to ask Mr. Villalobos if he would like to say some words to the board and to the public. And again, congratulations to you. And you now are recognized. You have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Villalobos. And again, congratulations. And the countless numbers of hours that we have put into this endeavor are well worth it. So we are very proud of you, and again, not only did you start the work, but you're gonna continue to hit the ground running 24 hours a day, every day, including weekends. So get ready, enjoy this weekend, and get ready, because that's what the job of a superintendent of the third largest school district does, as it has been done by our current superintendent, Dr. Jose L. Dodris. So at this time, I need a motion to move agenda item SP2 to the floor. I

Thank you very much. So therefore, at this time, I am going to also make a few more statements. First, I want to make sure that my colleagues on the board are aware of the fact that we have been working on this separation agreement continuously day and night. throughout the whole process since I was apprised that this was something that we would be considering. So thank you, Dr. Dodre's weekends. We have been working tirelessly on trying to make sure that we had SP2 together with all the supporting documents and attachments and everything. My goal was to have it ready for you on Friday. But as

Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you for running such a transparent and smooth process together with this board. I think this is a historic moment where we're truly showing our community how this board has always put our students, our families, and our administrators and teachers always first, And we made a commitment since the beginning that this was gonna be a process of transition, and that we wanted to do that in an effort to continuously move forward in a positive direction as we've had, but also knowing that change was coming. There was a time in which Dr. Dorchess was gonna com

Thank you very much, sir. All right, I have Board Member Espino.

Thank you very much, sir. Board Member Blanco, ma'am.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Like my other board members, I want to thank all of those involved because I recognize all the work that has to be put into all of this. So thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to our board attorney. I'll be honest, I would have loved to have seen the separation agreement come sooner, but I understand, right? It was a short amount of time to negotiate. And I did have a lot of questions, and I want to thank Mr. Harvey for the long conversations that we had, and he answered my questions. At the end of the day, my questions, the purpose of my questions was to ensure that we w

Thank you very much. And now, Board Member Geller, sir.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and good morning to you and to my colleagues and everyone else assembled. So first I want to just congratulate the board for how quickly you moved through SB1. I got to say I was pleased but a little surprised. I do ask, Madam Chair, that our Secretary of the Board, record me as a vote in favor of SB1. Yes, thank you. And I wanna also extend my congratulations to Mr. Villalobos as we finalize the arrangements to have him be, now we can say officially, our next superintendent, and I'm looking forward to working with you. I want to join in the congratulations of his learn

All right, Vice Chair Calucci. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to echo the sentiments of my colleagues. I want to say that I, and I want to thank Mr. Harvey. I was on the phone with him quite extensively, and he put a lot of my questions to rest, and I feel very comfortable with both agreements. I think that they're fair, and I want to thank for his years of service to this district. And also for recognizing that this time, this transition needs to be smoothly and being a gentleman about it as my colleague Mr. Espino said. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for that. It's truly

Thank you. All right, anyone else? Dr. Bendos-Meningo?

Thank you, Madam Chair. It is my honor to make a short speech. And you have one of my favorite people sitting out there with you, Mr. Villalobos, someone who goes way back with me and probably created the word fairness. He knows my community. He knows the people in the community, and he knows how to be fair. So I'm almost sure he passed that on to you. So I'll be looking closely, and I'll report to him when you're not fair. You know who I'm talking about. I got the smiles. So to all of you who played a role in getting us to this point, I've got to thank, first of all, our chair. Thank you. She

Thank you very much, ma'am. I do have, I believe Board Member Santos, would you like to say something before I speak again, ma'am?

No, thank you, ma'am. But yes, I'm here. But I'll just give my two cents. I know there will be more appropriate times to give flowers and to welcome our new superintendent. So I'm very excited for both and very grateful to Dr. Dotris for all he has done. And we look forward to our next steps.

Thank you so much. So before I take the vote, I would like to take a moment to thank every board member who's here. For the listening public, I would like for you all to know this process started about five months ago. And we have, in the state of Florida, sunshine violations. I cannot speak to my colleagues, but I negotiated every single step of the way with both Mr. Villalobos and Dr. Dutris. And I have to publicly state for the record, there are no other two individuals that are so caring, so dedicated, and so committed to Miami-Dade County Public Schools as the two of them throughout these

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed nay? Seeing none, motion passes. Dr. Dutris, sir, before I go back to the other one, he's gonna have an opportunity to speak.

Thank you very much, sir. And remember, the legacy that you leave us will live on for many, many, many, many years to come. And again, wishing you so much success in the future. Godspeed. and one door an amazing door that you've been part of all these years closest but another great one will open very soon for you we know you are very talented and um we haven't heard the last of dr jose el dotres we know that there's going to be a lot of great things coming your way So congratulations for the years that you have proudly led Miami-Dade County Public Schools as successfully as you have, thank yo

But he's going to be in transition until October 11th, as we discussed. But I am asking, do I need to take...

All right, great, then we will not take a vote. So then the next thing is the request that has been made, so I need a motion to reconsider SP1 so that we can have Board Member Geller who wants to be part of the affirmative vote here. Do I have a second? All in favor, say aye. Any opposed, nay. Seeing none, then the motion for the affirmative vote for, okay. Do I have a second? All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, and Board Member Geller, so glad that I heard that aye loud and clear. You are there on the affirmative vote, thank you. Thank you. With all the business that was necessar