Denver Public Schools has appointed its Chief Schools Officer Susana Cordova as acting superintendent.
She'll start the position in January, when current superintendent Tom Boasberg begins six months of unpaid leave.
"We are committed to driving forward our progress in the coming months, and Susana will be a very strong leader to do so," the school board said in a statement.
Cordova graduated from DPS herself and has worked as a teacher, principal and held the Chief Academic Officer position.
Boasberg praised his substitute on Tuesday, saying, "Susana is an extraordinarily experienced, thoughtful, creative and caring leader. I am very excited that she will step into this role and very confident that she will do a terrific job leading our district and driving needed change."
The Board of Education says they'll focus on a handful of tasks in the coming months with Cordova:
- Leadership development for our teachers and school leaders, including strengthening our principal pipeline and expanding our Teacher Leadership & Collaboration effort.
- Strengthening early literacy supports for our kids and training for our teachers in order to significantly increase the reading skills of our elementary students.
- Flexibility for our school leaders as we continue to push resources and decision-making power to those closest to our kids, teachers and communities.
- Financial planning to deal with expected state budget cuts for the coming year and planning for a potential November 2016 bond and mill levy election.
The district announced Boasberg's family leave in November. He'll be living in Latin America. He said he met his wife overseas and they want time to travel with their children. Boasberg is scheduled to resume the position in July.