MaryEllen Elia, a former superintendent of the Hillsborough County school system in Tampa, Fla., has been named the commissioner of public schools in New York state.
She replaces John King, who left his position at the start of the year to become a senior adviser to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
An upstate New York native, Ms. Elia had served since 2005 as Hillsborough’s schools chief until she was fired in January. Criticism emerged during the months prior to her dismissal that she had created “a workplace culture of fear and bullying” and failed to pay sufficient attention to minority students, local media reported. Her supporters argued that she had overseen significant academic improvement in the district.
R. Stephen Green, the superintendent of the Kansas City, Mo., district, will take the helm of the DeKalb County schools in Georgia, as of July 1.
The DeKalb school board picked Mr. Green from a pool of more than 100 candidates compiled by search firm ProAct. The district severed its contract with ProAct’s parentcompany, supes Academy, several weeks ago.
The academy is dealing with a federal probe in Chicago tied to no-bid contracts with a firm for which the district’s CEO once worked as a consultant.
The Missouri Association of School Administrators selected Mr. Green as its 2015 superintendent of the year. He has led the Kansas City schools since 2012 and also has worked in Indiana, New Jersey, and New York.
Joshua Starr, a former superintendent of the Montgomery County, Md., school system, will become the next leader of Phi Delta Kappa International this month.
The news comes three months after he stepped down as Montgomery County schools chief after “failing to convince a majority of the school board that he was leading Maryland’s largest school system in the right direction,” The Washington Post reported.
Mr. Starr had led the district since 2011. He also served for six years as superintendent in Stamford, Conn.
The Arlington, Va.-based PDK International is best known for its flagship magazine, Kappan, and annual poll, conducted in partnership with Gallup, that gauges the public’s attitudes on public schools.
