Roma school district trustees named Carlos Gonzalez as the lone finalist for superintendent Wednesday evening.
Gonzalez is the current superintendent for Zapata County ISD and has served in that capacity for five years, a release said. Before that he worked at Roma ISD as the career and technical education director and an assistant athletic director, and in a variety of capacities as assistant principal, facilitator, teacher and coach.
“So he had a really, really good resume,” Roma ISD Board President Ricardo Perez said Thursday.
The district’s effort to find a replacement included hiring the Texas Association of School Boards Executive Search Services to direct the search; TASB received input from staff and the community and developed a profile used to evaluate candidates.
“It wasn’t an easy decision,” Perez said. “We had actually 22, I want to say, really good applications and we narrowed that list down to six that we interviewed. Of the six we came down to a final three that we asked to come back once more.”
Perez said Gonzalez’s hometown insight in Roma and leadership experience in Zapata were important, especially given the tumultuous education landscape that followed the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s important that he’s had that experience at his current location, at his current district, so he’s aware of what it takes to deal with the pandemic as it impacts a school district,” he said. “So we’re getting someone who’s faced that challenge and can face that challenge.”
By law, the board must now wait 21 days before voting to hire Gonzalez and is scheduled to vote on offering a contract on or after May 18, the release said.
