Two longtime Florida administrators and an Air Force veteran with several short stints in education leadership are the contenders to become Broward’s next schools superintendent.
Broward Interim Superintendent Vickie Cartwright appears to be the frontrunner, based on recent board action. She was the only one of 15 qualified candidates that every School Board member wanted to name as a semifinalist.
At least two other candidates are also expected to be interviewed: Keith Oswald, chief of equity and wellness for Palm Beach County schools; and Michael Gaal, a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force and former deputy chancellor for Washington, D.C., Public Schools.
The new superintendent will replace Robert Runcie, who stepped down last year following his indictment on perjury charges.
The School Board identified their four top picks at a School Board meeting Jan. 25. However, one of their choices, Peter Licata, a regional superintendent for Palm Beach County schools, dropped out Thursday without stating a reason. He is a finalist for a superintendent job in Lincoln, Neb., and is scheduled to be interviewed there Tuesday.
The semifinalists could actually change Tuesday, because the School Board plans to hold last week’s meeting again due to concerns raised about possible Sunshine Law violations.School board members wrote down their favorite candidates on ballots, but how each member voted wasn’t shared during the meeting. The School Board hopes to name a new superintendent within the next two weeks.
Here is an overview of the candidates.
Vickie Cartwright
The rise of Cartwright, 50, to frontrunner status for the superintendent job, has been unusual and some say unfair.
Cartwright, who could not be reached for comment, was hired for the interim job by a split 5-to-4 vote in July. She agreed she wouldn’t apply for the job permanently since that was a restriction listed in the job description.
But three months later, three School Board members — Donna Korn, Rosalind Osgood and Nora Rupert — were happy enough with her performance to offer her the permanent job. All but one board member, Patti Good, agreed to amend her contract to allow her to apply for the permanent job.
“We had to bend the rules for her so she could apply,” Broward parent Megan Frost wrote to the School Board last week. “She now has an unfair advantage over the other applicants by having served as our acting superintendent for the last several months.”
Cartwright spent 20 years of her career as a music teacher and administrator in Orange County, Fla. She was hired in 2018 as superintendent of the tiny Oshkosh, Wisc., school district.
Barbara Herzog, who was the Board of Education president during most of Cartwright’s tenurein Wisconsin, described her as “an educator of impeccable character and high moral and ethical standards” in a letter of recommendation.
Herzog praised Cartwright’s handling of a 2019 shooting and stabbing at a high school, saying she provided “strong and responsive leadership.”
But Cartwright resigned from that job in mid-2021 amid pressure. Some parents voiced frustration about the school district pivoting back and forth between online and face-to-face instruction during the pandemic, according to the Oshkosh Examiner.
A group of administrators called for an outside investigation into her leadership style, describing her as “ego-driven” as well as “disingenuous, self-serving and not authentic.”
She lost support on the board following an election.
In Broward, she’s received support from the Broward Teachers Union and the Broward Principals and Assistants Association.
“Her strength in the academic arena and in the leading of schools will serve our District well,” Lisa Maxwell, who leads the administrator group, wrote in a letter of recommendation.
In the heavily Democratic Broward, she’s also received praise for standing up to Gov. Ron DeSantis and enforcing a mandatory mask policy, until the Republican-controlled Legislature outlawed student mask mandates in November.
So far, she’s been slow to attract top talent to the district. Most of the top-level administrator jobs are filled by district staff serving on a temporary basis. Cartwright has said people are reluctant to commit to the school district without knowing who the permanent leader will be.
Michael Gaal
Gaal, 54, has been an Air Force pilot, a school district administrator and an education consultant. Now he’s a frequent candidate for superintendent jobs.
Gaal is a finalist for superintendent in Decatur, Ill., although the School Board there has been slow to fill the job and is now interviewing a new candidate, according to news reports. He was a recent semifinalist for superintendent jobs in Cincinnati and Lee County, Fla., but didn’t make it to the finalist stage.
He declined to commentfor this news article, saying he was instructed not to by the school district and its search firm.
For the past four years, he’s been the president of two education consulting companies. His most recent company was New Jersey-based Beable Education, which sells products designed to close the achievement gap among students.
Gaal said in his application he’s ready for a change.
“Over the last two years of COVID, I’ve seen too many districts have superintendents retire or leave when the students/staff/community needed them most,” he wrote in his cover letter. ‘Now is the time for me to return.”
He’s held leadership roles in two large school districts, both for short tenures, and spent two years helping to lead a school turnaround effort in Detroit. Some Lee School Board members accused him of job-hopping, as he’s held five different positions in eight years.
“That to me is a concern if you can’t stay at a job,” said Debbie Jordan, Lee County School Board chairwoman.
Gaal told the Lee School Board that there were reasons for each exit. He left the Michigan turnaround effort after then-Gov. Rick Snyder closed it in 2016, two years after he started.
He was soon hired as chief of staff for the Oakland United School District and left after eight months to follow his boss, Antwan Wilson, to the Washington, D.C., Public Schools. Wilson, who was chancellor, named Gaal deputy chancellor in February 2017.
But Wilson’s tenure was short-lived. He resigned in February 2018 amid a scandal where he was accused of circumventing a lottery to get his child into a preferred school.
Gaal was not involved in that controversy, Michael Collins, president of the search firm Ray and Associates, told the Lee County School Board. Gaal told that board he stepped down six months after Wilson left to give the Washington, D.C., mayor a “clean slate” for staffing the school district.
More stable was his 25-year career as an Air Force officer, where he became an instructor pilot and had risen to the rank of colonel upon his retirement in 2014.
“What I really got from my military time is how to be accountable,” he told the Lee School Board. “I did that first and foremost by being a fearless leader.”
Four Broward School Board members — Ann Murray, Donna Korn, Lori Alhadeff and Debbi Hixon — selected Gaal as a semifinalist last week, placing him fourth before Licata dropped out. Board members initially planned to limit semifinalists to three but decided to give Gaal extra consideration due to his status as a veteran.
Gaal is the candidate preferred by the Facebook group Concerned Citizens of Broward County, which has been highly critical of district leadership since the Parkland tragedy.
“Mr. Gaal, based on his background and experience, would buck the trend of status quo that has led to an extremely over-budget build-and-repair project, declining enrollment, learning loss that was accelerated by the pandemic and expanding education gaps,” group moderator John Daly wrote.
Keith Oswald
Oswald has been a longtime school administrator in Palm Beach County, but he’s also been a longtime resident of Broward County, and said he has a vested interest in improving the district.
A resident of Oakland Park, Oswald, 54, has been chief of equity and wellness for the Palm Beach County School District since July. Before that, he was a deputy superintendent, where he oversaw principals, and chief academic officer, where he oversaw curriculum.
While some have questioned whether his current equity and wellness role was a demotion, Oswald said it’s not. He reports directly to the superintendent, just as he did during his previous two jobs, he said.
“I requested the transfer,” Oswald said. “The School Board was doing lot of work on equity, and I wanted to get in on it, addressing education disparities that we continue to see. We also anticipated increased demand for mental health services due to social isolation during the pandemic, and I knew this was a critical area.”
Oswald said he would bring a record of success to the school district, which has been struggling with academic achievement, especially since the pandemic. While Palm Beach and Miami-Dade have been A-rated in recent years, Broward has been stuck with a B. It was the only South Florida district to see a dip in its graduation rates in 2021.
“Under my leadership, student achievement has increased, and higher graduation rates have been achieved for all student groups,” Oswald wrote in his cover letter.
Oswald received a glowing endorsement from his boss, Michael Burke, a longtime Palm Beach County schools administrator who now serves as superintendent.
“His passion for education, strong work ethic, good moral compass, and commitment to the success of all students makes him an ideal candidate,” Burke wrote last month in a letter of recommendation.
But Oswald’s leadership has also been criticized for his role in a scandal that received international attention. Oswald was involved in a decision not to initially discipline William Latson, principal of Spanish River High in Boca Raton, after he told a parent in a 2018 email that he couldn’t confirm the Holocaust was a factual event.
When the parent complained, Oswald forwarded the concerns to two administrators and asked them “to keep him informed about the counseling they were giving to Dr. Latson, to address the Holocaust studies at the school to strengthen them, and to meet with the parent and address her concern,” according to a document from a state hearing.
After the issue became public in 2019, Latson was fired. The School Board rehired him after Latson won a case before a state judge, but then changed its mind and fired him again in 2020.
Latson “failed students. This district administration failed to make him do his job,” School Board member Barbara McQuinn said in 2020.
A former human resources investigator has alleged in a whistleblower lawsuit that Oswald and other district administrators stymied an investigation of Latson.
“As superintendent, I would not hire or retain anyone who doesn’t believe the Holocaust happened. The principal was terminated,” Oswald said in an email.
He said an external review of how the Latson case was handled “determined claims of wrongdoing were unfounded.”
“As to a recent complaint filed by a former employee, the District looks forward to correcting misstatements that are presented in the lawsuit in court,” Oswald said.
