Inappropriate relationship with former Herald reporter alleged

The Miami Herald published a story today about Alberto Carvalho, the Miami-Dade School Board's choice to replace the deposed Rudy Crew. The story reveals that there was an alleged inappropriate relationship between Carvalho and a Herald reporter who covered the education beat.

Even before the School Board selected Carvalho on Wednesday as its next superintendent, Internet postings began circulating that, if authentic, suggest Carvalho had a romantic relationship with reporter Tania deLuzuriaga, who covered Miami-Dade schools for the paper last year.

School Board members, community leaders and reporters have received about two dozen e-mails that appear to have been sent from deLuzuriaga to Carvalho between July and September 2007. Another e-mail purports to show Carvalho coaching School Board member Perla Tabares Hantman on how to challenge Crew -- then his boss -- about budget problems last September.

Hantman said she does not recall the message and said she still has ''total confidence'' in Carvalho.

Carvalho, an 18-year teacher and administrator, has not yet accepted the position; he also is weighing an offer to become the schools chief in Pinellas County.

During an interview Thursday at the high school where he began his teaching career, Carvalho denied writing the e-mail to Hantman and said he was never romantically involved with deLuzuriaga.

I have received a copy of the alleged emails from an anonymous source. If legitimate, this poses a problem for Carvalho, who is married and deLuzuriaga who would have committed a gross violation of journalistic ethics. She currently works for the Boston Globe.