Dive Brief:

• Of South Dakota's 151 school districts, 25% will be run by new superintendents this coming school year.  
• Tight budgets and a shortage of teachers has made the job of a South Dakota superintendent difficult in recent years. The turnover is attributed to having to deal with these tough decisions, as well as rising retirement baby boomers.  
• According to Rob Monson, the executive director of the School Administrators of South Dakota, superintendents typically move from district to district, but this year, many of the positions will be filled by former principles and teachers.    

Dive Insight:

The downside of former principles and teachers becoming superintendents is they may lack some of the necessary business administration skills. The upside is that they are intimately familiar with the nuances of running a classroom and may have a more specific idea of what students and schools need. While this is obviously not the purposeful intention of South Dakota, there have been districts in the past (typically charter schools) that have tried giving all the administrative roles to teachers in order to equalize the playing field. These Teacher Powered Schools see groups of teachers work collaboratively to make all of the tough decisions regarding curriculum, budget, behavior management, etc.