Cleveland schools’ next CEO will be announced Tuesday by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District Board of Education and Mayor Justin Bibb.
The mayor and the board of education have weighed two finalists in recent weeks. The new CEO will either be Warren Morgan, chief academic officer for Indianapolis Public Schools, or Ricardo “Rocky” Torres, assistant superintendent for student services at Seattle Public Schools. Both have previously worked in the Cleveland schools, Torres as an assistant principal and principal from 2014 to 2019 and Morgan as an academic superintendent and administrator from 2014 to 2016.
Torres, who was previously executive director of special education at Seattle Public Schools, grew up on Cleveland’s west side between the Ohio City and West Park neighborhoods. He began his career as a bilingual special education teacher in New York City. Torres is bilingual in English/Spanish.
Morgan grew up on Chicago’s south side. He was a principal at Chicago Public Schools for roughly four years, and prior to that, a teacher and corps member at the Teach for America nonprofit. He was also executive director of Teach for America in St. Louis for three years, and most prominently, a White House Fellow for Presidents Barrack Obama and Donald Trump.
Cleveland is unique in Ohio in that it has mayoral control of its school board, where the mayor must agree on the CEO candidate chosen by the school board.
You can read more about each finalist and their philosophies for education here.
