LAUSD Supt. Alberto Carvalho on paid leave after FBI raid

Los Angeles schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho has been placed on indefinite administrative leave, officials announced Friday — two days after FBI agents raided his home and office related to an undisclosed criminal investigation.

Andres Chait, a senior LAUSD administrator who has served as chief of school operations, was named acting superintendent, an announcement made by board President Scott Schmerelson.

“I know that this is a very challenging time,” Schmerelson said, “and I want you to know that the Board believes in you, supports you and know that you will all continue to do your very best to support the students and families of the district.”

It was not entirely clear whether Schmerelson was addressing Carvalho, the LAUSD community or both. After his remarks, board members quickly exited the room in silence.

The FBI has not accused Carvalho of wrongdoing but well-placed sources told The Times that Carvalho is a target of an investigation into AllHere, a defunct company that designed an all-purpose chatbot for the nation’s second-largest school system.

The chatbot was unveiled in March 2024 and quietly withdrawn from limited service within three months — at just about the time that AllHere collapsed financially. In November of that year, company founder and chief executive Joanna Smith-Griffin was charged with defrauding investors.

She has pleaded not guilty.

The length of Carvalho’s leave was not set in a statement released by the board.

Carvalho could not be reached for comment and has made no public statement.

Veteran attorney and education activist Virgil Roberts questioned the board’s action unless members have information that has not been made public — which, he added, seems unlikely given the secrecy of the federal investigation.

“My advice to the school board will be: Slow down. Don’t react immediately, because you have no facts,” Roberts said.

Even though the investigation could make Carvalho’s job more challenging, he said, officials should not have place on Carvalho on leave unless Carvalho requested it, he said.

“The only thing you know is that search warrants have been served and executed. You don’t know why, and you don’t know what the genesis of it is,” Roberts said.

“The presumption of innocence is real,” he added, especially given the Trump administration’s track record of going after perceived political enemies — a designation for which Carvalho qualified as a high-profile critic of Trump policies.

Chait was an apparently safe fallback option — he is widely seen as well-liked, capable and loyal. He is not a Carvalho man; that is, he is not part of a group from Florida and he preceded Carvalho in the L.A. district by two decades.

In his long L.A. Unified career, Chait, a district parent, has served in various roles, including as elementary principal, regional superintendent and, more recently, heading operations — which oversees non-education matters, including making schools safe and welcoming.

Chait has extensive experience presenting to the Board of Education and unfailingly upholds the administration’s perspective.

It’s not clear he had any idea of his approaching elevation. He was waiting with colleagues in the back of the public meeting room during most of the afternoon, ready with friendly greetings for people as they passed by.

The district emphasized that Chait is “acting superintendent” not “interim superintendent,” leaving the door open for Carvalho’s return.

With signs pointing toward an investigation of Carvalho, the school board decided to act quickly.

Barring an out-of-hand emergency, calling a board meeting requires requires 24 hours’ notice, and the board provided that notice on Wednesday — within hours of the FBI raids.

The Thursday board meeting opened with public comment — but there was little of it with much of the school-district community in shock and uncertain how to react. Three parent activists spoke and raised general concerns about the raids and other issues.

The board then exited the public chambers into closed session for nearly four hours. About 8 p.m., the board recessed for the day and resumed deliberations at 12:30 p.m. Friday.

At the start of the meeting on Friday, board members did not even enter the public chamber before continuing to discuss their immediate plans behind closed doors.

Questions before the board include whether and how long to stand by Carvalho — who has not been charged or accused of wrongdoing.

Raids on two coasts

Along with Carvalho’s San Pedro home and office at LAUSD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, the FBI provided an address in Florida that was searched Wednesday morning. Public records show that property is linked to Debra Kerr, who worked with AllHere.

Kerr is a longtime associate of Carvalho’s, dating to his tenure as superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

Kerr has worked as a senior executive and sales consultant to companies seeking work with school districts. She has claimed in court documents that AllHere owes her $630,000.

Attempts to contact Kerr were not successful. Investigators have not charged or accused Kerr of wrongdoing.

It’s not clear how long the federal probe is going to last.

A high-profile leader

The uncertainty over Carvalho’s future has arisen about five months after the Board of Education unanimously voted to retain him for a second, four-year contract, at an annual salary of $440,000.

The investigation represents a major crisis for the LAUSD, which under Carvalho’s leadership has been trying to regroup after learning disruptions during the pandemic. More recently the district has responded to assist families affected by the aggressive immigration crackdown by the Trump administration. These actions have threatened to destabilize a school system with large numbers of immigrant families.

Since his arrival in Los Angeles, Carvalho has moved aggressively to improve attendance after a pandemic-related explosion in chronic absenteeism. He also confronted issues such as labor and crime on campuses. After several years of post-pandemic academic help, Los Angeles students achieved what he described as a “new high water mark,” with math and English scores that rose last year across all tested grades for the second straight year, surpassing results from before the 2020 campus closures, Carvalho announced in July. The gains are generally considered solid evidence that instruction is moving in the right direction.

He garnered national attention for his activism against the immigration raids that affected students last summer, emerging as a foe of the Trump administration crackdown.

But the district’s experience with the AI firm was a notable setback during his tenure.

Carvalho had green-lighted an artificial intelligence chatbot, named Ed and represented by a smiling sun, for LAUSD students, families and teachers that quietly was disconnected three months after its release in 2024. It was supposed to respond to questions from students and parents in an accurate, helpful and private manner.

Carvalho touted Ed as an AI-enhanced student advisor that was to be a component of a unique Individual Acceleration Plan, or IAP, for every student. But the company behind it collapsed even before the technology was fully deployed.