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In the three years that Sito Narcisse, a finalist to be Chicago Public Schools’ next CEO, led East Baton Rouge Parish schools, he experienced a rollercoaster of support and backlash in the community.
The board there narrowly voted not to renew his contract in late 2023. His supporters praised his initiatives, including linking high schoolers to college-level coursework, while those who voted no raised concerns over spending fueled by federal COVID relief dollars and low employee morale.
Narcisse has also faced some controversy in other jobs, including criticism of his leadership of a public high school in Boston.
How Narcisse navigated his time in East Baton Rouge and other places provides clues on how he could lead the nation’s fourth largest district.
Unlike the other finalist, interim CPS CEO Macquline King, who grew up in Chicago and rose through the ranks of CPS, Narcisse has worked as an educator and administrator in at least a half-dozen cities and states, including Pittsburgh, Boston, and Washington, D.C., over nearly 20 years.
But like King, he’s had only one superintendent job.
Narcisse did not respond to a request for an interview for this story.
East Baton Rouge is far smaller and less diverse than CPS: It has 12% of the students, and nearly 70% of students are Black. But it has some similar needs: More than three-quarters of East Baton Rouge Parish students were considered “economically disadvantaged” in 2025, compared with roughly 70% in Chicago, according to district records.
Student academic results were mixed during Narcisse’s tenure, which included the pandemic and its aftermath. The share of kids in grades K-3 who scored “at benchmark” on end-of-the-year literacy screeners grew by almost 5 percentage points during his time as superintendent.
But for students in grades 3-8 in in each of those same years, the percentage of students who scored at the “basic” level on their state reading and math tests toggled between 23-24% — with a dip to 22% in math during Narcisse’s last school year, according to district data. In that same time period, CPS students in grades 3-8 who had met or exceeded proficiency in their state reading tests grew from about 21% to 30% and fluctuated from about 16% to 18% in math.
Average ACT scores were 17 during his time, with one increase to 18 — the state average — in the year before he left, comparable to CPS. Graduation rates fluctuated, landing at the same place they were when he started: about 73%. CPS graduation rate went from 79% to 80% during that same time period.
Supporters laud Narcisse’s ideas, but he faced controversy
Michael Gaudet, who was president of the East Baton Rouge Parish school board when it hired Narcisse, described the former superintendent as a “deliberate and decisive” leader who centered the needs of students. He praised Narcisse’s work to add literacy coaches for teachers in struggling elementary schools and help draft a blueprint for literacy.
”The biggest thing that he always emphasized was that to be effective, it has to be done at scale, and it has to be sustainable, and so, you know, that was kind of always one of his guiding principles,” Gaudet said.
His supporters also highlighted his “Pathways to Bright Futures” program, which allowed students to earn college credit and even an associate degree with a local community college.
Not everyone embraced the idea. Some parents and teachers didn’t want ninth graders to be limited to dual enrollment courses, arguing some colleges prefer Advanced Placement, the local newspaper The Advocate reported. District officials later said high schoolers would only be required to take one advanced class, which could include AP.
“That has been one of our landmark programs that our kids are still benefiting from through this very day,” said Dadrius Lanus, an East Baton Rouge Parish school board member and an ally of Narcisse’s who served as board president during Narcisse’s tenure.
Narcisse’s critics point to issues over school transportation and a leadership style that sometimes kept the public in the dark.
In Boston, Narcisse served as the headmaster of the district’s historic English High School from 2009-2012. Under Narcisse’s leadership, the Boston Globe reported, three-quarters of staff left and he instituted controversial changes, including same sex classrooms. The newspaper also reported that state education officials were withholding funding due to a lack of improvement at the school, which had faced academic challenges long before Narcisse.
Storm Matthews, a longtime middle school teacher and education advocate in East Baton Rouge who was previously a delegate for the Louisiana Association of Educators and is highly critical of Narcisse, pointed to an incident when board members were in the dark about Narcisse’s idea to close an alternative middle school — which Matthews discovered while looking through his proposed budget and alerted local reporters, the Advocate reported. After the revelation, Narcisse presented a plan to the school board for the closure about a month before teachers would return from summer break, and the board ultimately rejected it.
Problems with student bus transportation also dogged Narcisse during his time as superintendent. Similar to other districts, including Chicago, East Baton Rouge faced a driver shortage after the pandemic, and the district’s school bus fleet had been in disrepair before Narcisse came to town, according to Gaudet and Lanus. But those issues were compounded by bus driver concerns over pay and working conditions, such as overheated buses, leading to a “sickout” in August 2023.
In response, hundreds of people attended a special board meeting, and some called for Narcisse to resign, the Advocate reported. That day the school board rejected Narcisse’s plan to stagger school start times as a possible solution to create more reliable bus service.
District saved more money under Narcisse, but some criticized his spending
Narcisse was also charged with how to spend more than $200 million in COVID relief dollars from the federal government. Local financial audits found that East Baton Rouge, like other districts, significantly increased spending with the influx of the federal funds, and district officials said in 2023 that they would use about a quarter of the money on expenses that they typically cover with local revenue, the Advocate reported.
Despite that, those audits found that the district had set aside a record amount of money in its reserve, or rainy day, funds, though such spending couldn’t be kept up as the money ran out.
Narcisse also caught heat after some students said that an event called “Day of Hope,” billed as a college and career fair the district put on in partnership with a local organization, had religious overtones and included discussion of suicide and forgiving rapists, while transgender students said they were bullied. At the time, Narcisse said his office had made “exhaustive” efforts to verify the claims but found no evidence. Gaudet said a subsequent investigation did not find evidence, either. Two parents later filed a lawsuit against Narcisse and the board.
School board elections in 2022 brought on new officials who pushed back on Narcisse.
In May 2023, just over a year before his contract with East Baton Rouge was set to expire, Narcisse interviewed unsuccessfully to oversee Broward County, Florida schools. He told board members about the interview but said he was still interested in staying.
But in December 2023, the school board decided not to renew Narcisse’s contract by a close vote of 5-4, and Narcisse resigned the following month.
Two of the members who voted no declined to comment for this story, and the others did not respond to a request for an interview.
The Advocate reported that at least one of the board members who was previously supportive of Narcisse voted no, in part because he was concerned about how much money the district had spent using COVID dollars. Another board member, who was a longtime teacher, said she’d seen employee morale dip during Narcisse’s tenure.
Since leaving East Baton Rouge, Narcisse has launched an education consulting company called SJ Apple, which appears to be based in Florida. Narcisse also hosts an education podcast called Unlearned and Unlimited, through which he’s interviewed former superintendents and experts.
Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
