EPISD school board officially hires Diana Sayavedra as new superintendent
The El Paso Independent School Board officially hired Diana Sayavedra as the first woman to lead city schools in the district's 140-year history.
The school board hired Sayaverda as the district's next superintendent after a brief discussion in closed session Wednesday afternoon.
Sayavedra had served as Fort Bend's interim superintendent until September. She was the Fort Bend ISD deputy superintendent.
The board unanimously voted to approve Sayavedra's hiring and contract as the district's next leader. Trustee Freddy Klayel Avalos was absent and did not vote.
After the vote, the board held a welcome reception for Sayavedra in El Paso.
EPISD had voted to approve Sayavedra as lone finalist for the district's superintendent position by a vote of 6-0 Nov. 15. District 1 trustee Leah Hanany abstained from the vote.
After being voted the lone finalist, Sayavedra said her priority would be assessing academic instruction and addressing learning loss among the district's 50,000 students at 85 campuses.
EPISD is the 12th largest public school district in Texas.
"We all know that the pandemic has impacted the learning loss of children, so coming in and assessing how we are instructing to make sure that we are addressing learning loss is going to be critical," Sayavedra said then.
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She replaces Juan Cabrera, who voluntarily resigned in November 2020. Cabrera, who had come under fire for his work outside of his superintendent duties, received a severance package of nearly $560,000.
Terri Jordan was the first woman as EPISD interim superintendent in August 2011 after former Superintendent Lorenzo García was arrested for federal fraud in the scheme to artificially inflate student test scores.
Jordan resigned as interim EPISD superintendent in September 2012 and returned to her former chief of staff role. She resigned from the district in December of that year after coming under scrutiny for her alleged role in the cheating scheme.
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Who is Diana Sayavedra?
For about two years, Sayavedra was deputy superintendent at Fort Bend, a district with nearly 77,000 students south of Houston. From June to September of this year, she was interim superintendent of that district until Christie Whitbeck was appointed.
She previously worked as the district's chief academics officer and has extensive experience overseeing academics.
Sayavedra was executive director of curriculum and instruction at Pflugerville Independent School District for four years before being promoted to director of curriculum and instruction with that district.
Sayavedra was principal at Dessau Middle School in the Pflugerville ISD and Pearce Middle School in the Austin ISD. She also was principal at Elkins High and Sugar Land Middle schools in the Fort Bend ISD.
Sayavedra was recently pursuing a doctorate of philosophy in education administration from Texas A&M.
More: 'Breaking a glass ceiling': EPISD board selects Diana Sayavedra as superintendent finalist
Cristina Carreon may be reached at ccarreon@elpasotimes.com and @Cris_carreon90 on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: EPISD school board officially hires Diana Sayavedra as superintendent
