Dallas ISD Deputy Superintendent Susana Cordova will be leaving the district this summer, according to an update then-superintendent Michael Hinojosa provided to the board of trustees before his departure.
Her last day will be August 5, according to that update, which did not identify Cordova’s future plans. D has reached out to Cordova for comment. “We want to recognize and thank Susana for her significant contributions to the district,” the update added.
Newly-installed Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde said she had been made aware of Cordova’s impending departure.
“I’ve been notified that Susana has decided to take something somewhere else,” she said in a phone call.
Cordova was hired after Elizalde left to become the superintendent at Austin ISD in 2019. (Elizalde had been Dallas ISD’s chief of school leadership.) Cordova was also hired after the board added a clause to Hinojosa’s contract that same year, which required him to use his “best reasonable efforts to identify and mentor one or more qualified individuals” who could be considered by the board of trustees to be his successor. In May 2021, Hinojosa said this could be someone “who could take over in case I got run over by a DART bus.”
That timing, along with several statements Hinojosa made publicly and privately to individuals we spoke to, led many to believe that Cordova was next in line. However, the clause also explicitly said the tasks of searching for and choosing the next superintendent were the responsibilities of the board of trustees.