Floretta D. McKenzie, a longtime educator who served as the District of Columbia’s schools superintendent in the 1980s, has died. She was 79.
Ms. McKenzie served as superintendent from 1981 to 1988, during a period of relative stability for the district’s schools. Her tenure was one of the longest in the district.
She stepped down in 1988 to start the McKenzie Group, a consulting firm focused on urban education. It was later acquired by the American Institutes of Research.
Before taking the top schools job in the nation’s capital, Ms. McKenzie worked as a deputy superintendent in Maryland’s Montgomery County school district and was a deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Education. Early in her career, she worked as a teacher in Baltimore.
