Rochester school district monitor Shelley Jallow replaced by ex-Syracuse superintendent
Shelley Jallow, the state-appointed academic and fiscal monitor for the Rochester City School District, will be replaced former Syracuse Schools Superintendent Jaime Alicea for the upcoming school year, part of a state-wide monitor shuffling.
Alicea currently serves as a fiscal consultant for the district, working closely with Jallow on that part of her duties. Jallow will become the academic monitor in East Ramapo, where she will replace the recently departed Mary Fox-Alter.
The formal announcement came Friday, the final day of Jallow's three-year contract. Alicea will be in place until June 2025 and will earn the same pay -- $154 an hour plus expenses, including travel and lodging.
The state will also appoint a new financial consultant to replace Alicea, who before arriving in Rochester spent nearly 40 years with the Syracuse City School District, including his last six as superintendent.
"Mr. Alicea is qualified to seamlessly build upon the excellent work that Dr. Jallow has done in the district, providing support in its efforts to improve academic results for all students and addressing the district’s ongoing operational and fiscal challenges," a NYSED spokeswoman said in a statement.
Jallow, a veteran urban school administrator who has served in several large East Coast districts, was chosen to serve in Rochester in May 2020. Her appointment by the state was partly the result of RCSD's budgetary nightmare of 2019, when vast overspending during the Barbara Deane-Williams administration came to light.
In her academic and fiscal reports, first issued in late 2020 and updated regularly since then, Jallow has called on the district to enact better fiscal controls and to standardize and streamline its operations.
In 2022, for example, she sharply rejected the initial budget proposal put forth by Superintendent Lesli Myers-Small, criticizing her for suggesting using $30 million from fund balance.
Some of her recommendations -- to create junior high schools, add special education training for teachers and reorganize the human resources department -- have been enacted or will be. The district graduation rate is rising even as other academic markers remain in poor condition.
But her most persistent recommendation, that the district reduce its workforce as well as its number of schools in the face of declining enrollment, has proven more challenging.
Myers-Small, buoyed by federal pandemic funding, passed on school closures in her first budget and was stymied in her second one. Her successor, Carmine Peluso, is leading a two-year planning process that likely will result in major reductions for the 2024-25 school year, but the district has resisted labeling it as a school closure plan.
An unelected, uninvited contractor who implicitly wielded the full power of the state education commissioner and numbered among the district's top earners, Jallow was not universally appreciated. She clashed at times with Myers-Small, former School Board President Van White and other district leaders who felt her recommendations at times did not sufficiently take students' needs into account.
"We know this community, and with all due respect to Dr. Jallow – Dr. Jallow doesn’t live in Rochester," School Board President Cynthia Elliott said in 2021 after an ill-fated attempt at economizing on transportation.
In the fall of 2021, Jallow quietly took on a second job as regional superintendent for a charter school management organization in New York City and Connecticut. The terms of her contract did not bar her from doing so, but RCSD leaders, elected officials and the unions took umbrage at what they called a "clear conflict of interest" and violation of trust. She resigned from the second job shortly thereafter.
More: RCSD aims to put more students in schools that are closer to home. What we know
More: RCSD proposes budget exceeding $1B for first time ever: What to know
Like others before her, Jallow struggled to garner input from parents. Her final presentation on Thursday night drew only a single member of the public in person and about 15 watching online. She declined to comment about her future or her experience in Rochester.
RCSD has been under state monitoring for four of the last five years, including one year with former Distinguished Educator Jaime Aquino, now the superintendent in San Antonio, Texas.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: RCSD monitor Shelley Jallow replaced by former Syracuse superintendent
