LAUSD superintendent Alberto Carvalho resigns after FBI raids

Alberto Carvalho’s resignation leaves the Los Angeles Unified School District with a leadership vacuum at the top of the nation’s second-largest school system, just months after FBI agents searched his home and district offices. The departure caps a turbulent stretch marked by federal scrutiny, budget pressure, layoffs and growing questions about whether promised academic gains were worth the operational instability.

Carvalho resigned on Sunday, June 21, 2026, according to his legal team, which said he sent a resignation letter to the district and to individual members of the Board of Education. The move follows the board’s unanimous decision on February 27, 2026, to place him on paid administrative leave pending an investigation after agents executed search warrants at his San Pedro home, LAUSD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, and a residence in Southwest Ranches, Florida. The board named Andres Chait, the district’s chief of school operations, as acting superintendent.

Carvalho came to Los Angeles in February 2022 after 14 years leading Miami-Dade County Public Schools, where he was widely credited with improving graduation rates and academic performance, especially among Black and Hispanic students. He had also won national recognition as Superintendent of the Year in 2014. LAUSD’s own biography says he helped secure voter approval of a $9 billion school bond and led development of the district’s 2022-2026 Ready for the World Strategic Plan.

His supporters pointed to test-score gains and his defense of immigrants as proof of a superintendent willing to take on politically fraught fights. Critics, however, now see a tenure shadowed by questions about district contracting, governance and the failed AI tutoring project tied to AllHere, which became another symbol of mismanagement inside a district already facing major fiscal strain.

United Teachers Los Angeles said after the leave decision that the board should exercise greater independence and stronger oversight. That pressure now shifts to Chait and the board, which must steady operations, restore confidence with families and employees, and decide whether to keep the academic agenda Carvalho promoted or rebuild it under different leadership. For LAUSD, the central question is no longer whether Carvalho could deliver on his promises, but how much damage the district absorbed while those promises were being tested.