Markeshia Ricks Photo
De La Paz presenting a new school “equity” funding proposal in February before the Board of Ed.
So long New Haven Public Schools, hello Achievement First.
So goes the latest career move of Victor De La Paz, the schools system’s chief financial officer.
Superintendent of Schools Garth Harries announced in a release Tuesday afternoon that De La Paz will leave his current post on July 29 to become the financial officer of the New Haven-based charter school organization Achievement First.
“I leave because I believe I can have a strong impact on the educational outcomes of urban students at Achievement First,” De La Paz stated in the release.
Harries credited De La Paz with leading the public schools’ “financial systems to greater transparency, accountability, and effectiveness. I am proud that our budgets have been in balance, that we have increased the rigor of our financial analysis and planning, and that we have taken steps to address the inequities that we know exist in the funding of schools around the district.”
De La Paz came to the New Haven post two years ago from Baltimore, where he served as the public schools’ chief financial officer. Like Harries, he trained in a pro-charter-funded educational leadership program called the Broad Residency.
He pursued ambitious plans as New Haven schools CFO. He worked on an ill-fated plan to create an experimental New Haven-funded school in conjunction with Achievement First. He drew up five different versions of a plan to change the way that New Haven funds its schools; the versions stalled amid opposition.
De La Paz was born in the Dominican Republic; he came to the U.S. at 4 years old. His mom, a widow with a 5th-grade education, raised him and three older sisters on her own in Union City, N.J.. He attended Rutgers University; spent a few years in the corporate world; got an MBA from the University of Virginia; worked in mergers and acquisitions at The Hartford and Aetna, two Hartford-based insurance companies; and then became a senior manager at Capital One bank. He left corporate finance in 2008 to become special assistant to the superintendent of Hartford Public Schools.
Harries stated Tuesday that the school system will commence a search for De La Paz’s replacement.