{"id":245,"date":"2006-06-02T17:22:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-02T23:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/06\/breaking-news-board-picks-sonia-diaz-to-head-las-cruces-public-schools\/"},"modified":"2006-06-02T17:22:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-02T23:22:00","slug":"breaking-news-board-picks-sonia-diaz-to-head-las-cruces-public-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/06\/breaking-news-board-picks-sonia-diaz-to-head-las-cruces-public-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING NEWS: Board picks Sonia Diaz to head Las Cruces Public Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Sonia Diaz, former superintendent of the Bridgeport Public Schools in Connecticut, is the new leader of the Las Cruces Public Schools.<\/p>\n

The Board of Education made the announcement late Friday, following a day of candidate interviews at the Hilton Las Cruces.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be my pleasure to work with you,\u201d Diaz said. \u201cTogether we are going to make this an incredibly, remarkably successful system for all students.\u201d<\/p>\n

All five board members voted to hire Diaz, pending contract negotiations. A starting date and salary have not been set, but Board member Leonel Brise\u00f1o said the board hopes to vote on a final contract at Tuesday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe Dr. Diaz can bring healing and raise the educational bar in this district,\u201d said Board member Gene Gant.<\/p>\n

Diaz was most recently the deputy superintendent for curriculum and instruction for the Miami\/Dade County Public Schools in Florida. She brings a doctorate in administration, planning and social policy from Harvard University to the table.<\/p>\n

But her hiring is not without controversy. Many in the community wanted the board to hire Charles White, a former LCPS deputy superintendent and the only local candidate to be named a semifinalist. There was public outcry when he wasn\u2019t named a finalist.<\/p>\n

The school district also has deep scars because scandal has led to the departures of two of the last three superintendents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to start healing, and we can do that with open dialogue and discussion,\u201d Board member John Schwebke said.<\/p>\n

Board member Chuck Davis, who voted against the list of finalists earlier this week because White\u2019s name was not included, assured the public that the process was open.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did take into consideration your comments,\u201d he said to members of the public who participated in interviews. \u201cI believe the system was a well-conceived, well-done process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diaz said it\u2019s time for healing to begin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to be a shared project,\u201d she said. \u201cIt really is about bringing this community together to focus on children and adolescents.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sonia Diaz, former superintendent of the Bridgeport Public Schools in Connecticut, is the new leader of the Las Cruces Public Schools. The Board of Education made the announcement late Friday, following a day of candidate interviews at the Hilton Las Cruces. \u201cIt will be my pleasure to work with you,\u201d Diaz said. \u201cTogether we are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}