Los Angeles schools chief Alberto Carvalho resigns after FBI raid

Alberto Carvalho resigned from the top job at Los Angeles Unified School District after an FBI raid turned a once high-profile turnaround hire into a governance crisis for the nation’s second-largest school system. His departure leaves the district, which serves more than 520,000 students across 710 square miles, trying to preserve stability while key academic, budget and technology questions remain unsettled.

Carvalho’s legal team said he sent a resignation letter late Sunday to the district and individual board members, and that the resignation took effect June 21, 2026. In his message, Carvalho said, “Placing students first has always guided my work,” and said he was stepping down so schools could stay focused on students and learning without distraction. The scope of the federal inquiry has not been publicly detailed, but reports have linked it to the defunct education technology company AllHere Education, Inc. and a prior district technology contract.

The resignation closes a tumultuous stretch that began February 27, 2026, when the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education unanimously voted to place Carvalho on paid administrative leave after Federal Bureau of Investigation agents executed search warrants at his home and at Los Angeles Unified headquarters. The board named Andres Chait, then chief of school operations, as acting superintendent. Since then, district leaders have emphasized continuity as parents, labor leaders and other critics pressed for accountability during the investigation.

Carvalho arrived in Los Angeles in 2022 after leading Miami-Dade County Public Schools from 2008 to 2021, where he built a national reputation for lifting academic performance and graduation rates. He also earned praise in Los Angeles for defending immigrants, but his tenure became tied to labor disputes, budget pressures and controversy over district technology decisions. Those tensions helped erode the political trust he needed to lead a sprawling system already under strain.

His exit raises immediate questions about who will steer unfinished priorities at LAUSD, including district finances, labor relations and the fallout from the technology probe. For a system that educates more than half a million children from San Pedro to the northern edge of the city, the central test now is not only finding a permanent superintendent, but restoring confidence that the district’s leadership can govern through crisis.