paid the leader of Los Angeles’ public school system — who while under federal investigation — more than $100,000 over three years to mentor Superintendent Alex Marrero, according to records obtained by The Denver Post.
DPS contracted with the then-Superintendent Alberto Carvalho beginning in mid-2022 to provide “executive coaching” services to Marrero, first at a rate of $2,000 a month, then, starting the following year, at $3,000 a month, according to contracts obtained under the Colorado Open Records Act.
Carvalho charged the Denver district at least $107,000, according to invoices he submitted between November 2022 and January of this year, and reviewed by The Post.
DPS spokesman Bill Good said Marrero “ended his formal coaching relationship” with Carvalho in February when the Los Angeles district put Carvalho on leave following an and district office.
Carvalho resigned June 21 while still under federal investigation, a probe apparently related to a contract the Los Angeles district had with an education technology company whose leader was later indicted for fraud. Carvalho has .
Marrero had known Carvalho for a number of years, Good said. The Denver superintendent’s contract includes a provision that DPS pay for him to work with an executive coach.
“As a respected national leader in the field of public education and the former superintendent of the nation’s second- and third-largest school districts, Mr. Carvalho was a logical choice to fill that role,” Good said of the executive coach provision.
DPS did not make Marrero available for an interview Wednesday. He was hired in 2021 and makes at least $346,529 a year under his most recent contract.
Carvalho could not be reached for comment.
Coaching began in 2022
The original agreement between Carvalho and Marrero, signed July 1, 2022, and included in DPS’s first contract with the Los Angeles superintendent, notes that the coaching “may address specific projects, work performance, skill levels and general conditions in your professional or private life as they impact your workplace performance.”
The document does not include specific issues Marrero wanted to address or any other information specific to Denver Public Schools.
An email obtained by The Post under the public records act shows that, at least on one occasion, Carvalho was asked to offer feedback on a DPS matter.
In an email sent June 28, 2022, to Marrero’s deputy chief of staff Laney Shaler, and copied to Marrero, Carvalho offered his “general thoughts” on a draft DPS strategic roadmap.
“It is a strong plan that provides very good intentional and thoughtful direction,” he wrote, offering a list of comments and suggestions on what the document should highlight.
Though the email was sent prior to the initiation of the formal coaching agreement, Carvalho did later bill DPS for work done in June 2022, records show.
Before becoming Los Angeles’ superintendent in February 2022, Carvalho led for nearly 14 years. Marrero had applied for the upcoming superintendent opening in Miami-Dade County, but he was not one of six semifinalists announced Wednesday.
Marrero, in a statement about his “former candidacy” for the job, suggested he didn’t make the cut in Miami-Dade County because of his longstanding support of equity and the Black, Latino, LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities.
“I recognize that these values may not align with the increasingly conservative ideology shaping public education in certain parts of this nation,” Marrero said. “If that made me less attractive to Miami-Dade, I can live with that. … I will not retreat from equity because it has become politically inconvenient. I will not rewrite my leadership to fit a political moment.”
Investigation related to ed tech company
The investigation involving Carvalho appears to relate to a contract the Los Angeles school district, which serves more than 500,000 students, had with Boston-based education technology company to create an AI chatbot.
In 2024, Carvalho announced a deal with AllHere for a designed to help students. But about three months after paying the company $3 million, the district stopped working with AllHere, which collapsed into bankruptcy. The company’s founder, Joanna Smith-Griffin, was charged months later with securities and wire fraud, along with identity theft.
DPS has never had a relationship with AllHere, said Good, the district spokesman.
Marrero expressed support for Carvalho, a critic of the Trump administration, in a social media post in his personal capacity after the federal investigation was revealed.
“I admire Alberto as an educator, but more importantly, I know him as a person,” Marrero on March 13. “I can say without hesitation that he is a leader of integrity who has mentored, encouraged, and guided many of us in this profession. My confidence in him is not based on headlines or speculation. It is grounded in lived experience.”
Carvalho resigned after the Board of Education told him that it had the potential to fire him for cause because of several allegations, including that he allowed AllHere to pay for his travel to Washington, D.C., the .
Los Angeles school board members alleged in their letter that Carvalho did not disclose several financial benefits he received as required by California law, including paid travel to a conference in Denver, the Times reported.
One item that was reported in Carvalho’s : He acknowledged receiving between $2,000 and $10,000 for executive coaching provided to Marrero over the second half of 2022, .
But Carvalho billed Denver Public Schools a total of $14,000 for work performed in 2022. None of the former Los Angeles superintendent’s Form 700 disclosures reported any other income related to coaching Marrero.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
