The only competitive New Orleans race in the Dec. 7 runoff election will pit a political newcomer against a long-time fixture in the city’s education sector for a seat on the Orleans Parish School Board.
Gabriela Biro, a Gentilly hairstylist and first-time political candidate, said she decided to run for the 2nd District seat because she didn’t feel comfortable voting for the other candidates running in her district.
The 2nd district includes New Orleans East, Gentilly, Pontchartrain Park and the Upper 9th Ward.
“I had been tired of choosing between the lesser of two evils in many voting instances,” Biro said. “And I was like, I’ll just do this.”
Biro came in second in the Nov. 5 primary election, where none of the three candidates for the seat cleared the 50%-plus one threshold to avoid a runoff.
Biro’s opponent, Eric “Doc” Jones, came in first in November. Jones, who previously ran for a seat on OPSB and the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, has worked in education for decades — first as a teacher and later as a charter school board member and education consultant.
The election comes at an important time for the NOLA Public Schools district, which the board oversees. The district recently announced a $36 million budget shortfall due to an accounting error. (The deficit has been partially resolved through an agreement with the city of New Orleans.) Following that revelation, district Superintendent Avis Williams announced she would resign, likely meaning that the winner of the election will have a vote on her permanent replacement. And the district, which was entirely made up of semi-autonomous charter schools, recently opened its first permanent direct-run school in two decades — The Leah Chase School — and is considering a further expansion of traditional schools in the city.
Both candidates say they advocate for safe and successful learning environments for children, but propose different approaches to what they see as problems within the school system.
Jones is running his campaign on his experience, saying that Biro is not qualified to oversee one of the state’s largest public school districts.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years as an educator,” Jones said. “I’m not a cosmetologist, I’m not a beautician, I’m not a barber, I’m a career educator.”
But a review of Jones’ claims by Verite News raised a number of questions about his resume.
Vague, conflicting information about past experience
As a previous candidate for political office, as well as a member of the city’s Industrial Development Board and a former member of the governing board of Mary D. Coghill Charter School, Jones has filed a number of legally required personal financial disclosures with the Louisiana Board of Ethics.
In those disclosures, Jones does not list any employment except in his 2018 filing, where he said he was a self-employed education consultant. The disclosures cover 2017-2022. There is no disclosure for Jones for the 2024 election. When asked in a phone interview why he did not file a disclosure, he said: “What are you talking about?”
Jones’ campaign website claims he has extensive experience in school administration, working as a principal, head of school and “dean of culture/dean of student.” But it does not include any information about what schools he worked in or when he worked at them.
Asked for those details late last week, Jones listed off several schools and positions he claimed to have held. But when asked when he held those roles, he said, “I don’t remember all that stuff.”
Among his claims was that he worked as the dean of students and lower grade principal at Andrew H. Wilson Charter School. Verite News was able to confirm that he was employed by the school, but it does not appear that he was ever a principal there.
According to a lawsuit filed by Jones in 2012, following his dismissal from the school, he was not a principal. In the suit, Jones’ attorney wrote that he held the title of “disciplinarian” at Andrew H. Wilson. The lawsuit goes on to say that in May 2011, LaToya Cantrell — then a member of the Broadmoor Charter School Board, which governed the school at the time — ordered Jones off the premises. He was subsequently banned from the school’s campus, Jones’ attorneys wrote.
The lawsuit, which was dismissed for vagueness, does not say anything about what led to Jones’ firing. Asked about the circumstances surrounding his termination and the contradicting information about his position at the school, Jones grew agitated and accused Verite News of calling him a liar.
Andrew H. Wilson Charter School is no longer operated by the now-defunct Broadmoor Charter School Board. Former members of the board contacted by Verite News, including Cantrell, did not respond to requests for comment or declined to comment on Jones’ tenure at the school.
In last week’s interview, Jones also claimed to have worked as a “leadership coach” at Impact Charter School in East Baton Rouge Parish. He did not provide details on when he held the position.
Verite News confirmed that he has worked at the school, albeit in a pro bono position. In 2015, the Louisiana Board of Ethics filed charges against Jones over his employment at the school. According to the complaint, Jones worked as the school’s chief academic officer, a position for which he received no compensation.
The ethics charge stemmed from $5,000 he invoiced the school for staff training, even though such training was part of his normal duties in the job for which he agreed to work for free. The ethics board later voted to issue a “letter of caution” to Jones, dismissing the charges.
An employee who picked up the phone at Impact Charter School abruptly hung up when Verite News began asking questions about Jones.
Jones also claimed to have been a “leadership coach” at George Washington Carver High School for seven years. But according to a spokesperson for Collegiate Academies, the charter network that runs the school, he was contracted by the school for only two years — 2017 and 2018 — to coach and develop its athletic and band directors.
When Verite News asked Jones about one of these discrepancies, he became combative: “Be careful with how you speak with me,” Jones said.
“Once again your virtual paper and your tactics is/are not professional,” Jones wrote in a text message to Verite News. “I’ve given my entire adult life to education. I will put my trust in God and it doesn’t matter what you guys say at this point moving forward. I attempted to be professional cooperative with you however I did not receive the same.”
Teachers’ union backs newcomer
Biro said she was compelled to run against Jones given what she called his “history of impropriety,” citing his tenure on the governing board of Coghill.
In 2019, Jones resigned from his board position following allegations that he told teachers not to give failing grades and received improper reimbursements for expenses, money which he later returned. The school lost its charter later that year.
Biro said the idea of Jones being on the school board after these accusations made her “nervous.”
“I didn’t want to see him essentially being promoted after what had happened with Coghill Academy,” Biro said. “You know, being on a school board in that sense, and not living up to the job there, I don’t think you should be moved on to the OPSB.”
Jones refused to answer questions about Coghill. When Verite News asked about his resignation he said, “You really want to go there?” He said the allegations against him were false and he chose to resign based on recommendations from his attorneys.
“I wasn’t guilty of anything nor was I convicted of anything,” Jones said.
In an interview last week, Jones called the school district’s structure “dysfunctional.” He ran his initial campaign this year as a pro-district school candidate, saying that he would like the district to take over failing charter schools. His stance drew the attention of pro-charter groups, which spent over $200,000 against Jones and another pro-district candidate as they campaigned for the Nov. 5 election. Last week, Jones said the district should avoid taking over failing schools and should instead partner with them to avoid closures. Jones said he would adjust the accountability framework for schools.
Jones said he favors district oversight, but only to a point: “As long as the oversight doesn’t interfere with their day-to-day operations, it doesn’t interfere with hiring practices, it doesn’t interfere with their curriculum selection, it doesn’t interfere with their mutual contracts they have in their building.”
Although Jones’ candidacy announcement states that schools should be equipped with qualified educators, he said that teacher retention and accountability are issues for individual charters, not the board itself.
Jones said he could not comment on recently enacted state laws around schools that have been widely criticized as anti-LGBTQIA+ because he was not familiar with them. Together, the laws prevent discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom unless it relates to the state-approved curriculum, prevent school employees from using a student’s preferred pronouns and force trans students to use bathrooms that don’t match their gender identity.
Biro said that charter schools currently face no accountability, and the only way the district can fix this is by taking over schools with failing grades. She said state laws prevent effective change at charter schools.
“If we want to have control of our schools, we have to bring back direct-run schools,” Biro said.
Many of Biro’s clients are either teachers or work in education and she said she has seen them leave the field because of short payments and disrespect from administrators. Biro said she wants to amplify the voices of everyday residents, something she said she feels capable of doing because people already come to her with their issues regarding the school system.
Biro said she wanted to help reduce the harm the recent anti-LGBTQIA+ laws — and other policies that may be imposed on schools by the incoming Trump administration, which has called for dismantling the Department of Education — may have on students.
Despite her inexperience, Biro said she is qualified for the position. Support for educators is central to Biro’s campaign, which has been endorsed by the United Teachers of New Orleans union. She said the endorsement speaks to people’s distrust of Jones’s past.
“Why did they go with me instead of someone with 20 years of education experience?” Biro said. “I think it says [something] about his character and his past within the school system.”