After two years as schools superintendent in East Baton Rouge Parish, Sito Narcisse has submitted an application to become the schools leader in Miami, the fifth largest school district in the country.
The Broward County school system publicly released Narcisse’s application on Thursday, one of five new applications submitted by a Tuesday deadline. They join 14 other qualified applicants who applied previously.
Earlier this month, that county’s school board extended the application deadline in hopes of attracting more qualified applicants to the prominent post.
The nine-member Broward board is set to meet Monday to settle on semifinalists for the vacant top job there. The board plans to reconvene May 30 to pick finalists and to select their next superintendent on June 15.
The Advocate is seeking comment from Narcisse his application.
Narcisse took over the East Baton Rouge Parish school system in January 2021, his first time as a superintendent, and his contract does not expire until June 2024.
Narcisse has been an ambitious, but also controversial leader. He has presided over a sizable expansion and revamping of the Central Office while pursuing a variety of far-reaching initiatives.
His moves have sparked periodic outcries, starting with an abandoned early proposal to start the 2021-22 school year two weeks early and widespread criticism of a “Day of Hope” field trip this past September.
Narcisse’s base annual salary is $255,000.
A native of Long Island, Narcisse in 2002 spent three years as a French teacher at a high school in suburban Nashville, Tenn., but by 2007 he was an assistant principal in Pittsburgh. He has since held a series of administrative jobs, none lasting more than three years, in Boston, Maryland, Nashville and in Washington, D.C. His most prominent position was serving as chief of schools in Nashville from 2016 to 2019.
After arriving in Baton Rouge, he instituted a districtwide literacy program, placing literacy as well as math coaches at many schools. He has greatly expanded dual enrollment, starting with this year’s ninth-grade class, with the goal of students graduating high school with enough credits to earn an associate’s degree or to be close to that threshold. He has also expanded early childhood education.
His initiatives have yet to bear much academic fruit. East Baton Rouge Parish’s overall academic performance declined in 2021-22, Narcisse’s first full year as superintendent, compared to the year he arrived. Most school districts, by contrast, showed improvement by that measure.
Academic results for the current school year won’t be released publicly until later this year.
The first year of his tenure, to be sure, was hampered by COVID, with student and teacher absences spiking and classroom instruction in general greatly disrupted.
Calling himself a “change agent,” Narcisse has sparked controversy throughout his tenure with vocal detractors and periodic protests over his decisions. But he also had steady support throughout from many local business leaders and prominent African-American political leaders in town.
In January, a new School Board took office, six out of nine of them new to the job. Mike Gaudet, who has called Narcisse “a visionary,” asked the mostly new board to vote to start contract renewal negotiations with Narcisse. Gaudet ended up pulling the item in deference to fellow board members who weren’t ready to take such a step.
Narcisse has connections to Miami.
In August 2021, former Broward County superintendent Albert Carvalho came to Baton Rouge to speak at a gathering of school principals — Carvalho has since left to become school superintendent in Los Angeles. That November, Baton Rouge school board members visited Miami to see that city’s arts conservatory school as well as other specialized schools.
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