21085 LM Summer 2021_hi

Retirement ... cont’d.

retiring early or leaving the profession or on the ability to attract educators to pursue the top leadership role. Next month in Leadership Matters, IASA will look closer at the latter. We will review statewide data and interview university educational administration leaders about trends they see and if they believe Illinois is facing an administrator shortage. Closer lookat thenumbers Based on IASA membership data collected to date, Illinois has not seen an abnormal exodus of superintendents before the start of the 2021-22 school year, although the numbers are up from last year. Every year, IASA collects information about who is retiring, transferring districts or hired as a new or interim superintendent. Our data indicates at least 53 superintendents in Illinois retired June 30, 2021. That figure is up from 35 superintendents who retired on June 30, 2020. However, the number of retirements over the past five years has followed a pattern of bouncing up and down. For example, IASA recorded 53 retirements in June 2017 and then 34 in June 2018. The number shot back up to 53 in June 2019. This year, the number of transfers for superintendents is actually down. Sixteen superintendents transferred districts for the 2021–22 school year, compared to 25 the year prior. At the Illinois Association of School Boards, the number of executive searches has actually dipped for the 2021–22 school year, according to Thomas Leahy, Director of Executive Searches for IASB. IASB averages around 120 executive searches per year but is only conducting 89 for this upcoming school year. There is not a single factor Leahy can identify for the drop in executive searches. Part of it could be attributed to more districts hiring interim superintendents and putting off the search for a full-time superintendent until next year. Illinois also has other executive search firms so IASB totals may not be representative of what’s happening statewide.

It’s also possible this year could be a blip and there will be a swing the other way. In April, Illinois held school board elections across the state and seated many new school board members. Not always, but changes in boards can lead to changes in superintendents. School board elections and the pandemic were deeply intertwined this year, making some elections more heated than normal. “There were definitely people upset in some communities about how everything with the pandemic unfolded,” Leahy said. Right time for a change Superintendents leave jobs for various reasons, including local elections, local politics, personal reasons or the desire to pursue a new job. And, sometimes, they’re simply ready for a change. After 19 years at Carbondale CHSD #165, including the past decade as superintendent, Steve Murphy decided to step away from the job at the end of this past

school year. For the next nine months, he and his family plan to travel the country as his wife pursues some new career opportunities. At this point, Murphy isn’t sure what his next chapter will be. He could come back to Illinois and work as a superintendent, find a similar role in a different state or launch a new career.

It’s impossible to separate the pandemic, and the stress it put on superintendents this past year, entirely from his decision to step away, Murphy said, but it wasn’t the primary factor. More, he didn’t want to reach the point a colleague once told him he reached, where he no longer rooted for his school to win at sporting events, but rather for the game to be over. Stephen Murphy

12 LM Summer 2021