Superintendent turnover surges among urban school districts as pandemic issues linger

Complaints from parents, teachers and school boards about misconduct, curricula and low test scores have driven superintendents out of urban public school districts at an increased rate as pandemic emergency problems linger.

Federal data shows that 23% of the largest K-12 school districts experienced leadership changes over the past year, the education consulting firm ILO Group reported Monday. That’s 114 departures out of 500 districts, among roughly 13,000 districts nationwide.

Departures rose from 20% of large districts in 2023, and from a pre-pandemic average of 14% to 16% annually, as cities such as New York, Chicago and Las Vegas scrambled to fill sudden vacancies, the nonprofit group said.

“Superintendents have always faced tough jobs, but the environment they are operating in today is different,” ILO Group CEO Julia Rafal-Baer, a former New York state assistant education commissioner, said in an email. “The politics are harsher, the spotlight is brighter and the patience for real change has grown shorter.”

The Department of Education did not comment on ILO Group’s analysis of its data, which the consulting firm says is the only public database of superintendent turnover.

Several education insiders pointed to a surge in complaints about school district leaders in recent years. Common topics include teacher contract disputes, misuse of pandemic stimulus funds, historic lows in standardized test scores, and parental pushback on race and gender identity instruction.

“The fiscal cliff caused by COVID relief funds drying up combined with the abysmal data around academic achievement make the role more difficult,” Nina Rees, an Education Department official in the George W. Bush administration, said in an email. “Not to mention ICE raids, school shootings and culture war issues.”

Virginia Gentles, an education analyst at the Trump-aligned Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies, noted that just 22% of high school seniors scored proficient in math on the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress.

“District leaders’ high turnover rates reveal the increasing chaos in our nation’s school districts,” Ms. Gentles said.

Multiple reports have tracked a spike in K-12 teachers, staff and administrators leaving their jobs since public schools closed their campuses to in-person learning during the COVID-19 emergency.

The Superintendent Lab at the University of Texas estimates that superintendent turnover in urban districts peaked in 2021-2022 and began to stabilize during the subsequent year.

The ILO Group report suggests the situation is worsening again.

Jason Grissom, an education professor at Vanderbilt University, said the group’s findings suggest that the average length of a superintendent’s term could shrink to less than three years as the nation’s public schools struggle to recover from COVID-driven learning losses.

“If 2025 marks the start of another upturn [in departures], we should be concerned,” said Mr. Grissom, who was not involved in the report. “Stability at the top of the school district organization is important.”

The K-12 school tracker website Burbio shows that burnout has been a factor.

The site reported this month that 48.4% of the superintendent departures it tracked since July 2024 involved retirements, 22.2% came from leaders taking other jobs, 18.7% arose from resignations or leaves of absence, 8% were firings, and 2.7% stemmed from contracts not being renewed.

“I would say [the ILO Group] report looks consistent with what we have seen, and they are looking at the data in some unique ways,” Burbio President Dennis Roche said in an email.

As superintendent turnover accelerates, more districts have looked for replacements in new places.

The ILO Group, a women-owned firm, estimated Monday that one-third of superintendents are women who largely come from administrative roles. That includes half of all appointments in the nation’s 100 largest school districts over the past year.

The report noted that women recently replaced men in several big districts, bolstering its projection that the U.S. will reach gender parity in superintendent roles by 2054.

For example, in the New York City Department of Education, the nation’s largest school district with 1.03 million students, Melissa Aviles-Ramos succeeded David C. Banks in October. Mr. Banks announced his retirement after federal agents seized his electronic devices as part of a corruption investigation into the administration of Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat.

Chicago Public Schools, with 340,658 students, is the third-largest district behind Los Angeles. In June, it named Macquline King as its interim CEO to replace Pedro Martinez. Mayor Brandon Johnson, a Democrat, forced out Mr. Martinez in a dispute over teacher contracts.

Nevada’s Clark County School District, the nation’s fifth-largest district with 307,212 students, named Jhone Ebert superintendent in March. The Las Vegas-area district had been without a permanent leader since February 2024, when Jesus Jara resigned amid complaints that he misused federal pandemic stimulus money for teacher recruitment trips.

Robert Maranto, a University of Arkansas education professor who has researched superintendent gender disparities, said the increased turnover has challenged a long-standing preference for male district leaders nationwide.

“There’s been some old-fashioned sexism on school boards that want a commanding male presence and don’t tend to think of women deputies in this way,” said Mr. Maranto, a former public school board member. “It’s changing now because we’re getting more desperate for leaders, forcing us to cast a wider net.”

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