Four weeks after selecting a pool of six candidates, the Pasadena ISD school board announced Wednesday that it had narrowed down its search for a new superintendent to one finalist.
Board members voted Deputy Superintendent Toni Lopez as the top candidate to replace superintendent DeeAnn Powell, who will retire at the end of this school year after nearly ten years at the helm. By law, the board must wait three weeks before making an official hire, working out contract specifics in the meantime. The board vote to hire Lopez will take place March 27.
In interviews last February at the start of their search, board members said they hoped to find a candidate with roots in the Pasadena community who could continue to build on Powell’s legacy. Lopez has spent 28 years in various roles in the district, most recently as Deputy Superintendent of Staff and Academic Achievement.
Board president Casey Phelan said in a phone interview Thursday that Lopez’s “calm, cool, and collected” nature and local expertise impressed him and the other board members, ultimately leading the board to vote unanimously to advance her through the selection process.
“She was grown in-house,” Phelan said. “She came up through the ranks, from being a teacher all the way through to becoming Deputy Superintendent, so she’s got the experience and of course, the wealth of knowledge just from being in the district for as many years as she’s been in the district.”
Although Phelan said the board hoped to continue Powell’s era of “prosperity,” he also tried to consider each candidate as their own individual during the interview process. In her interview, Phelan said Lopez aimed to diverge from the current superintendent in key ways, including identifying areas the district could streamline.
“One of the first things I told the board was, ‘Dr. Powell is now a dirty word,’” Phelan said. “Anytime you say ‘Dr Powell’ that’s one dollar in the cuss jar. (But) if we had this metaphorical cuss jar, it would be overflowing.”
In an interview with the Houston Landing last October, Lopez championed the district’s holistic approach towards its students, fostering not only academic success but also social and emotional well-being.
“We feel like we have to invest in the whole child,” Lopez said. “We can’t just worry about them getting their reading, writing, math, science, that type of thing. We have to invest in the whole child, making sure that the child has their basic needs met so that they can come to school and learn those other things.”
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