Three days after Alberto Carvalho resigned as superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the district announced that Andrés E. Chait will be the next superintendent of the second-largest school district in the country.
Chait had been acting superintendent since February, when Carvalho was placed on leave pending the results of a federal investigation.
Carvalho has denied any wrongdoing, and authorities have not charged him with any crimes. In his resignation letter, he wrote: “Because I believe our schools must remain focused on students and learning without distraction, I am resigning as superintendent of LAUSD.”
For many LAUSD parents, Carvalho’s June 21 resignation has been deeply disappointing.
In early 2025, a group of Latino parents met with Carvalho to discuss their worries about their children attending school under the threat of imminent large-scale immigration raids hitting their neighborhoods.
They were impressed that Carvalho was accessible and readily expressed his resolute support, emphasizing that he was an immigrant himself, who had arrived in the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor from Portugal at the age of 17 and was undocumented for several years. He vowed to keep immigration agents out of LAUSD schools and keep students safe.
And he kept his word, recalled parent Maria Nieto of Panorama City. That’s why she and many fellow parents she knows were surprised and saddened to learn Carvalho had resigned.
“ At the end of the day, it’s the students who lose the most,” said Nieto, who has four children in elementary, middle and high schools, and is an active volunteer for Our Voice: Communities for Quality Education, a bilingual group of predominantly immigrant parents of school-aged children across LA.
“I believe [Carvalho] tried to do good things,” she continued. “At the district meetings, he was always approachable to the school community, including students and parents. … In my opinion, he was a superintendent who really did listen [and] he made schools feel like safe spaces.”
When the immigration raids started, Nieto said that Carvalho was one of the officials, especially in the education sector, “who was looking for a way to make us [parents and students] feel a little relief about what was happening.” A lot of people were afraid of taking their kids to school because “they were afraid they were going to be picked up and deported,” she explained.
“ I felt like he understood the situation [and] genuinely cared about the students and their families,” said Nieto.
The parents of Our Voice released a group statement following Carvalho’s resignation:
“Latinos comprise 74% of the district’s families, yet their voices in conversations around policy and funding often go unheard. Mr. Carvalho changed this by inviting families to meet with him directly. … Mr. Carvalho quickly became an important advocate for immigrant families.
“He protected learning conditions for children, while reassuring parents and remaining outspoken in the face of callous immigration enforcement during a terrifying moment in our country’s history for immigrants.”
Our Voice stated that they hope the incoming LAUSD superintendent – the newly-appointed Chait – will follow Carvalho’s example and listen to the concerns of immigrant parents.
Nieto believes Carvalho could have achieved more for LAUSD schools if he had had more time.
“ We can’t expect someone to change everything overnight – four years wasn’t long enough,” she said, adding that she hopes the next superintendent will “ try to do everything possible to support and protect the students.”