Before its financial collapse, AllHere contracted with numerous Florida companies, including a Miami-based communications firm called DGD Communications. It\u2019s run by Daisy Gonzalez-Diego, who worked as Carvalho\u2019s spokesperson in the Miami-Dade school district<\/a> for seven years, court records show.<\/p>\n Her previous title was chief communications officer for the district, and she was part of Carvalho\u2019s cabinet.<\/p>\n The firm\u2019s contract began in March 2024 \u2014 the same month that LAUSD rolled out the company\u2019s chatbot, called \u201cEd,\u201d to 100 schools intended to help struggling students.<\/a> Multiple national news<\/a> reports<\/a> say the $6 million AllHere contract with LAUSD, approved under Carvalho, is the focus of the federal investigation.<\/p>\n Gonzalez-Diego\u2019s role was to \u201cprovide strategic guidance to the Company\u2019s management team and LAUSD senior leadership,\u201d the contract stated. The firm said it was never paid for that work, however, and is still owed $30,500, according to bankruptcy filings.<\/p>\n Gonzalez-Diego did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n She was hired by AllHere\u2019s former CEO, Joanna Smith-Griffin, who was charged in November 2024 with allegedly defrauding investors<\/a> out of $10 million. She\u2019s accused of funneling company money for personal expenses, like her house and her wedding. Smith-Griffin has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n Smith-Griffin, who said she was a former Miami-Dade schools student<\/a>, worked out of Miami along with half of the company\u2019s staff, according to Smith in an article on Softbank Miami<\/a> by Refresh Miami, a digital website covering the local tech industry and WLRN news partner. The major fund had invested $8 million in Smith-Griffin\u2019s company, which was officially headquartered in Boston.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Carvalho released his first public statement on the investigation, through attorneys, denying any wrongdoing. <\/p>\n “Mr. Carvalho respects the rule of law and the investigative process and has always acted in the best interests of students and within the bounds of the law,\u201d the statement, reported by the Los Angeles Times<\/a>, said. \u201cWhile the government\u2019s investigation remains ongoing, no evidence has been presented by prosecutors supporting any allegation that Mr. Carvalho violated federal law.”<\/p>\n The statement also said Carvalho is “confident that the evidence will ultimately demonstrate that he acted appropriately and in the best interests of students” and asks the L.A. school board to reinstate him “promptly.” <\/p>\n Superintendents, salespeople and consultants<\/p>\n Other prominent AllHere creditors from South Florida include a current Miami-Dade schools lobbyist and a former Broward County schools superintendent, according to court documents.<\/p>\n A firm called Wellington Lynn, LLC is listed in bankruptcy files and is registered to Robert Runcie<\/a>, the Broward County schools superintendent at the time of the Parkland massacre. He was indicted<\/a> in April 2021 by a state grand jury, looking into school-safety funding failures, for perjury. The state dropped the charge last summer, after Runcie admitted to making misleading statements. He did not plead guilty.<\/p>\n Runcie, who now runs a national education organization, didn\u2019t respond to several requests for an interview. It\u2019s not clear from bankruptcy documents how much Runcie\u2019s firm was owed or what work it did for AllHere, if any.<\/p>\n A lobbyist for Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Tom Cerra, leads the firm, Florida School Services, in Miami, and did work for AllHere.<\/p>\n Reached by phone, Cerra confirmed his firm marketed AllHere to Florida school districts.<\/p>\n \u201cIt didn\u2019t go well,\u201d he said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t place them anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n He said AllHere was \u201cpreoccupied with other things.\u201d WLRN asked Cerra how Carvalho was involved with AllHere.<\/p>\n \u201cI have the utmost respect for his honesty and professional conduct in every matter,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t know what went on with AllHere out in L.A. I had no relationship to that.\u201d<\/p>\n READ MORE: Los Angeles superintendent Alberto Carvalho placed on paid leave during federal probe<\/a><\/p>\n A lesser-known firm in the mix is ABC Educational Consulting Group, LLC. It\u2019s registered to consultant Stanley Simon, based in Boynton Beach.<\/p>\n Like Gonzalez-Diego, Simon began consulting for AllHere in the spring of 2024, after the chatbot\u2019s launch.<\/p>\n Simon attended events for two New Jersey school districts, and even employed a well-known subconsultant: the former New York City schools chancellor, Richard Carranza. After Carvalho famously reneged<\/a> on his commitment to leave Miami schools for New York\u2019s in 2018, Carranza was hired in Carvalho\u2019s stead.<\/p>\n WLRN reached Simon by phone this week: \u201cI have no comment. I know nothing \u2014 less than you do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In bankruptcy filings, the company alleged it\u2019s owed nearly $35,000.<\/p>\n Simon\u2019s consulting work was \u201cdirected by and in coordination with Debra Kerr,\u201d an invoice said.<\/p>\n The FBI raided Kerr\u2019s registered home<\/a> in Southwest Ranches on the same day agents searched Carvalho\u2019s on the West Coast. The search warrants remain sealed by federal prosecutors.<\/p>\n Natalie La Roche Pietri \/ WLRN<\/p>\n The residence in Southwest Ranches raided by the FBI on Wednesday. <\/p>\n Carvalho and Kerr were friends dating back to the 2000s, when she worked as a lobbyist for textbook company Pearson.<\/p>\n The 74 million, an education nonprofit outlet that broke the story of AllHere\u2019s implosion<\/a>, uncovered a press release<\/a> from 2010, showing how Kerr gave Carvalho and Miami-Dade students \u201cfront row access\u201d to an original print of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n Kerr and Carvalho\u2019s friendship continued throughout his time as Miami\u2019s, then LA\u2019s superintendent, the Miami Herald<\/a> reported. The superintendent is prominently featured on Kerr\u2019s social media.<\/p>\n In 2022, Smith-Griffin, the CEO, hired Kerr as AllHere\u2019s part-time \u201cChief Growth Officer,\u201d according to an employment form. She had a $180,000 annual salary.<\/p>\n Kerr\u2019s role was to sell AllHere\u2019s product \u2014 a chatbot intended to combat absenteeism and engage with families \u2014 to school districts. Kerr has said she helped land the major contract with LAUSD when Carvalho was superintendent, which the Herald reports is being examined by federal agents.<\/p>\n WLRN reporters visited Kerr\u2019s house in Broward last month after the FBI raid and received no response at the front gate. Kerr said she is still owed $1.3 million in commission fees, according to files, related to the LAUSD deal.<\/p>\n How Miami-Dade schools funded AllHere\u00a0<\/p>\n One of AllHere\u2019s most prominent contracts, preceding its $6 million agreement in L.A., was with the Miami-Dade County School Board.<\/p>\n AllHere\u2019s success was born out of Miami\u2019s anxiety.<\/p>\n Coming out of the worst of Covid, Miami school board members looked for a way to retain public school students, who were leaving in droves to charter and private schools. Charter schools gained roughly 5,000 students from October 2021 to 2022, according to district data.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, chronic absenteeism \u2014 which the state defines as missing 18 school days \u2014 soared to 29% of students in the 2022-23 school year.<\/p>\n Officials wanted a tool that would help teachers and staff communicate with families easier regarding attendance and hoped direct communication would be a selling point for parents to keep their children in district-run schools.<\/p>\n The goal was to \u201cre-engage our most vulnerable students,\u201d including chronically absent ones, the district\u2019s request for proposal said.<\/p>\n They wanted a software that could transcend language barriers.<\/p>\n \u201cParents will have the ability to communicate in their preferred language which will then be translated to English for teachers,\u201d the request for proposal says.<\/p>\n AllHere submitted a bid for the Miami-Dade contract in January 2022.<\/p>\n Carvalho left a month later to become superintendent in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n The district has not yet responded to a public records request seeking documents relating to this RFP.<\/p>\n The current superintendent, Jose Dotres, was in charge when, on Oct. 5, 2022, the district awarded the tech company a three-year contract of $1.89 million meant to establish the software system to communicate with parents. It passed 7-2.<\/p>\n Lubby Navarro was on the Miami-Dade County school board at the time and voted against the agreement.<\/p>\n One reason she disapproved was she felt there wasn\u2019t enough information about the results AllHere had in other school districts.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aWe are awarding a $1.8 million contract and I want to make sure that they have national experience to capture and find these students,\u201d said Navarro, who herself is under indictment for unlawful use of district funds.<\/a> She\u2019s pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to know that they’ve done it in an urban school district with the complexities of Miami-Dade County Public Schools or similar because ultimately this is tied to funding that we lose every year,\u201d Navarro said at the time.<\/p>\n A contentious Miami-Dade County school board meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022. <\/p>\n District Chief Financial Officer Ron Steiger \u200atold her the RFP selection committee looked for the company that could provide \u201cthe best job [providing] that human interaction\u201d and \u201ccan pivot from each community in an individualized way to be able to solve the problem on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n Navarro asked which other school systems had worked with AllHere.<\/p>\n Steiger said Broward County, Los Angeles and New York City districts had.<\/p>\n These are \u201cthe largest school districts in the country and some of the most complex,\u201d Steiger said.<\/p>\n The Los Angeles contract had not been approved yet.<\/p>\n WLRN also reviewed the contract Broward County Public Schools had with AllHere, which was supposed to provide “community engagement related to attendance concerns.\u201d The contract was for 7 months, between 2021 and 2022 and cost $48,000.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773302422_584_.jpeg\"\/)
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