Austin school board names Matias Segura superintendent finalist

The Austin school board has unanimously chosen Matias Segura as its lone finalist for superintendent, giving the interim chief the permanent position.

The long-anticipated announcement brings certainty to the top administrative office, which has remained open for 18 months, during a tumultuous time for the 72,000-student district.

Segura has been leading the Austin district in an interim capacity since January and has overseen the district’s response to the Texas Education Agency's investigation and oversight of the schools' special education department.

The trustees chose Segura because he has the management skills needed to oversee and support a large school district such as Austin's and has shown he cares about the long-term health of the organization, board President Arati Singh said.

"He shares the true belief in his bones that every one of our 70,000 students can achieve academic excellence," Singh said.

This position is one Segura "never, ever, ever" thought he'd be in, he said Thursday.

"To be given the opportunity to lead this organization for the next several years, it's incredible," he said. "I love this organization. I love our students. I love our staff. I'm really excited to be taking this work on."

The district has been in flux since June 2022, when Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde left Austin to run the Dallas district. She joined the Austin district in August 2020, after longtime Superintendent Paul Cruz resigned.

Anthony Mays stepped in as interim superintendent during the summer of 2022 but left that December to take the superintendent job in the Alief school district in southwest Houston.

Before Segura took over the top administrative role on an interim basis in January, he was the district’s operations chief and oversaw construction, facilities and maintenance. He largely led the rollout of the $1.1 billion bond package approved by voters in 2017.

Segura came to the district with a construction management background and had worked for Travis County.

He has been working for the district almost six years. He graduated from Austin public schools, and his mother was a teacher in the district. He has two daughters attending Austin district schools.

Before Thursday's vote, school board member Kathryn Whitley Chu noted that Segura is the first Austin superintendent to have graduated from the district.

"I'm all in," Segura said.

The board picked him as the lone finalist Thursday night after a three-hour executive session. At one point during the closed-door meeting — only school board members, top district officials and invited guests could sit in to discuss the personnel matter — a district administrator who was not in the executive session left and brought milkshakes back to the bored staff members who were also waiting for officials to return to open session.

In January, when the board picked Segura as interim superintendent, officials charged him with bringing stability to the district. Austin schools had just finished a year of significant teacher turnover, faced demands for higher staff pay and were undergoing a state investigation into the severely backlogged special education department.

Segura used his time in the interim position to restore trust with staffers and community members and to set up systems he hopes will help the district run smoothly, he said.

"Most important to me was the fear that if we did not stay the course, a future leader, perhaps, a future disruption, would erode some of the systems this board has begun to put in place and perhaps set us back," Segura said.

In the interim role, Segura earns $315,908.90 annually, plus a $720 cellphone stipend and a $9,000 travel stipend, according to district records.

Before Mays' departure, the district had begun formally looking for a new superintendent and had hired GR Recruiting to run the executive search.

In March, trustees extended Segura's interim contract from six to 18 months, saying they voted for the extension to create more stability in the district and emphasizing Segura's operations management experience.

Last month, trustees decided to abandon their national search for a superintendent through GR Recruiting, which can take months, because they had identified a strong candidate for the job, according to the district. The vacancy was then posted, and the board on Dec. 7 reviewed six applications for the top job.

Officials announced earlier this week that a decision could come down Thursday.

Singh said Thursday that the trustees decided to forgo the national search for a superintendent because they thought they had the candidate the district needed in Segura.

"It's easy to say Matias is the easy choice, but we wanted to make sure we were making the right choice," Singh said.

The board made sure to talk to community members about what they wanted in a new superintendent and made a profile of the perfect candidate, she said.

"We realized, we kind of have him right here," Singh said.

In Texas, school boards must wait 21 days between naming a superintendent finalist and offering a final contract.

A year ago, board members pledged to foster an open and transparent superintendent search. In Texas, districts often don't reveal more than one finalist.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin school district picks Matias Segura as superintendent finalist