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Los Angeles Superintendent Alberto Carvalho is on paid administrative leave after an FBI raid on his home and offices earlier this week.
The Los Angeles Unified school board announced the unanimous decision Friday afternoon after two lengthy closed-door sessions. Chief of School Operations Andres Chait was named acting superintendent, effective immediately.
Carvalho has led the nation’s second largest school district since February 2022. He previously served 14 years as superintendent of the Miami-Dade County School District in Florida. Carvalho has been an outspoken defender of undocumented students and at one point was an unauthorized immigrant himself.
The FBI raided Carvalho’s home and offices on Wednesday morning.
The FBI has not accused Carvalho of wrongdoing. Sources have told the Los Angeles Times and other media outlets that Carvalho is a target of an investigation related to the now-defunct edtech company AllHere Education, which designed an AI chatbot for the district.
In a press release, the school board said it acted to ensure district leadership could remain focused on serving students. The press release also said the board could not comment on the investigation.
“Today’s action is aimed at fulfilling our promise to students and families to provide an excellent public education without distraction,” Board President Scott Schmerelson said.
Here’s what we know so far:
- Federal officials executed search warrants at Carvalho’s home in Los Angeles’ San Pedro neighborhood Wednesday morning, as well as his office at LAUSD headquarters. The FBI also searched a home in Broward County, Florida, in relation to the same investigation, Miami public radio station WLRN reports. Public records show that the home belongs to Debra Kerr, a former sales representative for AllHere. The affidavits that back up these search warrants are sealed, the FBI told local media outlets.
- LAUSD launched “Ed,” an AI-powered personal assistant for students, in March 2024. The district abruptly dropped its relationship with AllHere, the company that developed Ed, a few months later when the company collapsed. Company founder and former CEO Joanna Smith-Griffin was indicted on federal fraud charges in 2024. She pleaded not guilty. A report by EdSurge raised questions about what happened to student data in the process.
- Under Carvalho’s leadership, Los Angeles Unified School District has ramped up protections for undocumented students in response to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics. The district has expanded bus routes and virtual schooling options, conducted its own patrols around school sites, and helped families with legal assistance. Carvalho grew up very poor in Portugal and was homeless and undocumented as a young man. He has said his own experiences mean he can understand the fear that many immigrant students feel today.
- The U.S. Department of Justice recently sought to join a private lawsuit challenging the Los Angeles district’s decades-old desegregation policies. The lawsuit filed in January by the 1776 Project Foundation alleges that a district policy of ensuring slightly smaller class sizes at most of its schools discriminates against students who attend schools with a higher percentage of white students.
- The School Superintendents Association named Carvalho their Superintendent of the Year in 2014 when he was the head of the Miami school district, the nation’s fourth-largest. In 2018, then-New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio named Carvalho chancellor, only for Carvalho to turn down the job. He took the top job in Los Angeles in 2022.
- The Miami district’s inspector general investigated a nonprofit started by Carvalho for soliciting a donation from a company that created a failed online learning platform. The investigation found no ‘actual’ wrongdoing, the Miami Herald reported in 2021, but the inspector general said the donation created an appearance of impropriety and should be returned.
Editor’s Note: Updated, Feb. 27, 2026. This story has been updated to reflect that Carvalho was placed on paid leave and to include additional information about the investigation.
Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor covering education policy and politics. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.
