At least six public school districts in the Baton Rouge region will have new superintendents when the next school year begins in August.
They are part of a larger wave of departures of top K-12 school leaders across Louisiana. They are leaving as worries about COVID continue to recede but other challenges remain, including finding and keeping teachers.
“COVID took its toll on a lot of people,” said Mike Faulk, executive director of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents.
St. James and West Baton Rouge parishes both recently selected new leaders. Ascension Parish and Zachary are scheduled to pick new superintendents soon. And Iberville Parish and City of Baker schools have fresh vacancies at the top.
Faulk said he’s expecting 16 or 17 new faces next school year among the school superintendents who are members of his organization.
They join a group of relatively new superintendents. Faulk estimates that about four of 10 superintendents in the state will have three years or less of experience running a school district.
Hollis Milton is one of the state’s most veteran superintendents, having spent almost 13 years running the public schools in West Feliciana Parish. He was just 37 when he took the job, so young that Faulk used to call him “the teenager.”
Last week, the West Feliciana Parish School Board voted to rehire Milton for four more years to run the state’s second-highest ranked school district.
Like Faulk, Milton is struck by the steady stream of new faces he sees when he and his fellow superintendents gather for meetings.
“In recent years you see more people come and go,” Milton said.
Faulk, who himself spent about 25 years as a superintendent, first in Morehouse Parish and then in Central, said the stress of managing schools during the disruption of COVID is a big factor in all the superintendent departures. He pointed to other reasons, including the replacing of many school board members across the state with newcomers this past fall.
“You had board elections and some of the boards made significant changes,” Faulk noted.
After spending years building relations with board members, the less-enticing prospect of trying to do that again can lead school leaders to think twice about staying, Faulk said.
Milton said he’s been blessed with a stable, supportive school board through his years in West Feliciana and he said that despite many demands on his time he devotes a lot of time to fostering those relationships and said that effort “pays big dividends.”
“If you get alignment with a board, you can do things and make change in a very smooth way,” Milton said. “In places where that is a struggle, you are going to have a lot of other struggles.”
Superintendents aren’t always open about why they are leaving.
Iberville Parish Superintendent Arthur Joffrion announced March 13 at a parish school board meeting that he is retiring after seven years at helm of that 4,300-student school district, but has yet to say why. That night, he said nothing when the item came up and none of the board members who spoke offered a reason for Joffrion's retirement. Three of the nine Iberville board members took office in January.
In response to a request for comment from The Advocate, Joffrion issued a short statement, but didn’t offer any explanation for his decision.
“It has been the privilege of a lifetime to have served as the Iberville Parish School System superintendent for the last seven years,” said Joffrion, adding that he will be staying on the job until his current contract ends June 30.
The Advocate requested a copy of his retirement letter, but that request was denied.
Baker City school superintendent De’Ette Perry also recently retired after 20 years with the school district of almost 1,000 students and two years in charge. Perry was absent from the March 14 board meeting where her retirement was announced and did not respond to requests for comments from The Advocate.
Perry’s departure is not a surprise. Last June, the Baker school board rejected in a 2-3 vote a one-year extension on Perry’s contract. Last fall, voters selected four newcomers to serve on the five-member board.
The board plans to hold a non-voting work session Monday at 6 p.m. to sort out how it wants to find a permanent replacement for Perry.
J.T. Stroder is acting superintendent. Stroder took over as K-12 supervisor of curriculum and instruction in Baker in July 2021. He’s previously served as superintendent four times before in small school districts, mostly in the West, but had not expected to take the reins a fifth time.
“They just appointed me as a person to sign paychecks and sign contracts,” Stroder said.
He said he’s still deciding whether to pursue becoming the permanent superintendent in Baker.
Stroder is wearing many hats already. In addition to the job he was hired for, Stroder has been the district's supervisor of technology and supervisor of student support services, which includes student transportation. He took on those extra duties in recent months to cover for fellow administrators who are retiring or on leave.
Searches are nearing the finish line in Ascension Parish and Zachary.
Just two of the candidates who applied for the Ascension Parish superintendency meet the qualifications for the job: Edith Miller Walker and Ernest “Buddy” Reed Jr. The school board is set to meet Wednesday to decide which of the two will come back for an interview.
Walker is Ascension chief instructional director, a job she’s held for the past three years, and was previously director of middle schools. She started her career in 1998 as a high school teacher in Pointe Coupee Parish. She shifted fields and became a guidance counselor at Dutchtown High in 2002, eventually becoming the school’s principal for three years.
Reed has not previously worked in Ascension. With nearly 50 years of experience in education, Reed spent 30 of those years in Ouachita Parish schools before serving for four years as superintendent of schools in Lafourche Parish. He then spent 14 years as a principal and director of athletics in College Station, Texas.
They are seeking to replace David Alexander, who announced earlier this year he will be retiring in June after seven years running the 24,000-student school district. Ascension is the largest school district in the Baton Rouge region.
In Zachary, the deadline to apply for superintendent is Friday. Zachary is seeking to replace outgoing Superintendent Scott Devillier, who is leaving after more than 10 years as superintendent of the top-rated school district in the state.