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| Raquel Sosa-Gonzalez and Former Chancellor Richard Carranza |
Betsy Combier
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Editor, Advocatz.com
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
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Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials
Ex-NYC Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza has left his wife for an administrator he brought from Houston to New York for a six-figure Department of Education job.
Raquel Sosa, who quit the DOE just last week, and Carranza now list the same luxury high-rise condo in San Antonio, Texas, as their current address, records show.
Their relationship appears to confirm a complaint that Carranza used his powerful position to favor pals, but one that city school investigators did not touch.
In December 2018, eight months after Carranza became NYC chancellor, his administration named Sosa, a Houston elementary school principal, “senior director of ELL (English Language Learner) newcomers and students in temporary housing” with a starting $149,000 salary.
In October 2019, Sosa got a lofty new position — “senior director for development, support and implementation in the Office of Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Learning,” officials said. Her salary increased to $156,274 in 2020.
Sosa worked remotely until mid-July. Her last day was Aug. 31, said DOE spokeswoman Katie O’Hanlon.
Carranza quit his $363,346-a-year chancellor’s job in March — with schools still in session amid the pandemic — after leading the nation’s largest school system for nearly three years. He explained he had to mourn loved ones lost to COVID-19, but promptly took a job with an ed-tech vendor with millions of dollars in DOE contracts
Last week, Carranza and Sosa posted the same cheek-to-cheek Facebook profile photos
Carranza, 54, makes no secret of their romance. He has commented on various photos of Sosa, 47, making remarks such as “Absolutely gorgeous mi vida!!!!”
On Aug. 12, when Sosa posted a video of a Mariachi concert, Carranza wrote, “Thank you for joining me, mi amor. Te amo.”
Sosa met Carranza when he served as Houston’s school superintendent. Formerly Sosa-Gonzalez, she was already divorced when she moved to NYC.
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| Richard Carranza and his wife, Monique, filed for divorce in Brooklyn Supreme Court in August 2020. [photo:Matthew McDermott] |
The hiring of Sosa and two other friends from California, where Carranza was schools superintendent in San Francisco, generated a complaint in early 2019 to the Special Commissioner of Investigation for NYC schools, The Post revealed.
A whistleblower letter said DOE put them on the payroll in 2018 “at the direction of chancellor Carranza,” without advertising the openings, as usual, and without interviewing other candidates.
At the time, Carranza called the criticism a form of bias against him as “a man of color.”
The SCI said this week, “This case has been closed,” and “no further information is available.”
A spokeswoman refused to say whether SCI investigated the allegations, or why it closed the case. She insisted that Mayor de Blasio had no influence on its decisions.
Another woman named in the complaint to SCI, Martha Martin, was a San Francisco teacher who met Carranza when he was that city’s schools superintendent. Hired in October 2018, the DOE named her associate director for community and family empowerment in the Division of Multilingual Learners, with a $119,587 salary. Martin resigned in October 2019, the DOE said. A spokeswoman gave no reason.
Also named was Abram Jimenez, then vice-president of Illuminate Education Inc., a California ed-tech firm doing business with NYC schools. He was named “executive director of continuous school improvement,” a newly created title that now doesn’t exist. Jimenez quit that $205,416-a-year job in July 2019 as The Post prepared to reveal he held stock in software vendor Illuminate Education, an apparent conflict of interest.
Carranza and Sosa did not respond to requests for comment.
