La Joya ISD rolls out new leadership team, organizational chart

For her last major announcement for the school year, La Joya ISD Superintendent Marcey Sorensen officially announced at a board meeting last month the district’s new central office leadership team and the organizational structure it will be operating under.

It’s been no secret that Sorensen intended to restructure the district’s leadership; La Joya ISD posted job openings for its new top-level positions in April.

Changes have been apparent over the past couple of months as senior administrators quietly stopped coming to board meetings and Sorensen unofficially introduced newcomers.

Formerly, La Joya ISD’s administration had four individuals at its head under the superintendent, three area superintendents and a chief financial officer.

Sorensen’s new leadership structure puts six “chiefs” at the top of the pile: a chief of staff, a chief of operations and infrastructure, a chief of business and administrative services, a chief of student, family and community services, a chief of human capital and talent development, and a chief of academics and school leadership.

Joseph Niedziela, Sara Capwell Geary, Mirgitt Crespo, Claudia Gomez-Perez, Jaime Miller and Derek Little will serve in those positions, respectively.

Gomez-Perez is the only inhouse hire for one of those spots. The rest are newcomers to the Rio Grande Valley.

Sorensen tapped Niedziela early in her tenure at the district and introduced Crespo at a board meeting several weeks ago.

“It is a streamlined, organized org. chart in how central office will function,” Sorensen said. “Each one of those departments will report directly to me and will be accountable for a customer service focused accountable office that’s here to serve the community, that is here to serve our students and is here to support student outcomes. Period.”

The new organizational chart also includes a few deputy chief positions.

Martin Munoz, formerly the district’s area superintendent for curriculum and instruction, will occupy one of those positions as La Joya ISD’s deputy chief of academics.

Out of the district’s previous four peak-level administrators, he appears to be the only one to come out of the shakeup with a senior post.

The district’s new executive directors, who are subordinate to those chiefs, tend to skew more toward in-house hires.

Out of the eight executive directors the district’s posted on its website so far, six are tenured La Joya ISD employees.

The district will retain its public communications head and its police chief.

Why the shakeup?

The district based its new organizational chart on empirical research and community surveys, Sorensen said, which boiled down to a consistent theme: inefficiency.

Sorensen included anonymous quotes from stakeholders in the presentation. Parents complained about an unresponsive administration. Teachers complained about moribund guidance from leadership.

Fears over retaliation and the specter of cronyism — frequent concerns at La Joya ISD in recent years — made an appearance.

“In order for me to get things done, I have to drop a name, that’s just not how it should be,” Sorensen’s presentation quoted one anonymous principal saying. “Otherwise, it just does not get done.”

Sorensen billed her new administration as a vehicle to get things done the right way. She talked about goals and strategies at length, emphasizing customer service, data-based decisions and transparency, especially over things like employee grievances— which the new board has spent an awful lot of time dealing with.

La Joya ISD stakeholders are used to their school district’s leaders wheeling out stuffy academic jargon to describe the groundbreaking ways they intend to transform the district.

Heriberto “Beto” Gonzalez, Sorensen’s predecessor as superintendent, reliably worked the district’s initiative of being “student focused, data-driven and results oriented” into virtually any conversation.

Gonzalez maintains that that effort succeeded significantly. Sorensen’s presentation last month indicated the district needed a course correction.

Lots of Sorensen’s goals and commitments don’t, on the surface, sound terribly different. Her approach to accomplishing those goals has differed, however.

Firstly, Sorensen has been more ambitious. In addition to reorganizing district leadership, she’s implemented significant belt-tightening budgetary measures and barred elected officials from holding supervisory posts in the district.

Both of those initiatives drew criticism and it’s difficult to imagine Gonzalez or any other superintendent serving under an elected board operating with such latitude. Sorensen works for a state-appointed board.

Secondly, Sorensen has been more candid about challenges facing the district than Gonzalez was and has emphatically staked her personal rapport with the community on efforts to solve them, something she did again explaining the administrative reorganization last month.

“We’re committed to keeping student needs at the very center of our decision making processes,” she said. “I commit that to you, to every child and to every family in La Joya ISD. If you have had an opportunity to engage with me over these past five months, you know that. You know that. We will continue to seek your input. Every single time you have something to say, there is somebody to listen.”

La Joya ISD’s board backed Sorensen’s administrative proposals last month, which isn’t a surprise. They’ve consistently backed her since the state took over La Joya ISD and picked all of them to lead it.

The board, however, emphatically expressed support for Sorensen at last month’s meeting, more so than usual — particularly regarding her choice in administrators.

Sorensen’s budget cuts and politician policy have garnered traditional media coverage, but published criticism over her administrative hires has so far been limited to anonymous social media pages.

One of those pages last month claimed that Sorensen had been reprimanded for only hiring white people to top positions. Another page, one that watermarks its content with a machine gun, has lobbed more pointed allegations of racism at her.

It’s not clear whether Sorensen’s board had that criticism in mind last month, but it is clear that it felt the need to defend her.

Multiple trustees voiced hearty impromptu support for Sorensen’s administrative decisions, including Board President Julian Alvarez.

After the board met behind closed doors in executive session, Alvarez reiterated his support, reading a prepared statement voicing the view of the board that seemed aimed at dispelling any notion that Sorensen lacked support on new initiatives, particularly administrative hiring choices.

“As we move forward, the La Joya ISD board members will continue to support our superintendent in all her endeavors,” Alvarez said. “We have full faith in her leadership, her ability to guide our district toward a brighter future.”