The Colton Joint Unified School District Board of Trustees has decided to replace outgoing Superintendent Jerry Armendarez through an internal promotion.
Frank Miranda, the district’s assistant superintendent of business services, will move into Armendarez’s role overseeing the district as of the date of his departure, which is January 1.
Armendarez was hired by the Santa Ana Unified School District earlier this month. A student in the Colton Joint Unified School District in the 1970s and 1980s before he went onto a career in education, Armendarez, after working as a classroom teacher elsewhere returned to Colton Joint Unified as a principal in 1999, then served as the district’s director of human resources from March 2004 until March 2007 and became the assistant superintendent of human resources in July 2008. He stayed in that assignment until October 2010, at which point he acceded to the superintendent’s spot.
Santa Ana convinced Armendarez, who is being paid an annual $239,241 salary presently along with another $1,500 in compensatory add-ons and $51,257 in benefits, to leave Colton Joint Unified by offering him $327,000 in salary, other pay of roughly $33,000 and benefits of $75,000, equating to total annual compensation of of $435,000.
Miranda is a former teacher and principal, and was the business services division head under Armendarez.
Miranda, Colton Joint Unified Board President Joanna Thoring-Ojeda said, offered the advantage of coming “from within our own team.” She said he will “ensure that the purpose and vision that comes from all of us collectively continues in the right direction.”