Turnover Rates For Superintendents Remain Significant
The more things change, the more things don’t. That certainly appears to be the case when it comes to the nation’s corps of school superintendents.
They’re still predominately male. They’re still predominately white. And turnover continues to be higher than it was before the pandemic.
Those are the key findings from an analysis of superintendents in large districts released this month by the ILO Group, a consulting firm.
One in 5 of the nation’s 500 largest districts replaced their superintendent during the 2023-24 academic year, the data show.
The shifts in leadership are occurring as school districts face significant challenges with financial stability, enrollment declines, staffing, and academic recovery. Turnover at the helm of school systems can slow those efforts as new leaders often introduce new strategies and require time to acclimate to the role, education leadership experts say.
That 20 percent turnover rate is slightly below last year’s rate, 21.4 percent. It remains above the 14 percent to 16 percent rate estimated by organizations like AASA, the School Superintendents Association, in years past, the ILO report says. (Julia Rafal-Baer, the co-founder and CEO of the ILO Group, serves on the board of trustees for Editorial Projects in Education, Education Week’s publisher. Education Week retains sole editorial control over its content.)
Women led 152 of the 500 largest districts by the end of the 2023-24 school year, a number that did not change from the previous year, the data show. That’s particularly striking because 77 percent of teachers are women, according to the latest federal data.
“That zero growth-rate mirrors the steady state of women in top leadership positions in the private sector, including Fortune 500 CEOs,” the report says.
Districts did not use turnover at the top as an opportunity to recruit new women leaders. Thirty-five of the districts with turnover selected female leaders, while 68 selected males, the data show.
The data also found racial disparities in district leadership, with women of color least likely to fill those roles.
Among the 500 largest districts: 220 are led by white men, 128 are led by men of color, 80 are led by white women, and 72 are led by women of color.
Schools’ Cybersecurity Demands Are Growing, But Funding Isn’t Keeping Up With the Pace
Cyberattacks target more schools than hospitals, local governments, and other public-sector sites, but those in charge of fending off the invaders say they’re lacking in armament.
State education leaders worry funding for cybersecurity isn’t keeping pace with the worsening problem of attacks on schools, according to a survey released this month by the State Educational Technology Directors Association.
And it’s not likely to get better, they fear, with the rise of artificial intelligence, which relies on datasets that may include student and staff personal information, the report says.
The proportion of state ed-tech leaders who believe their state provides “sufficient” funds to support cybersecurity efforts in schools dropped from 19 percent in last year’s annual survey to
8 percent this year. The survey includes responses from more than 80 state ed-tech directors, state chiefs, and chief information officers from 46 states.
What’s more, the percentage of respondents reporting that their state provides “only a small amount of funding for cybersecurity” more than doubled, from 15 percent last year to 33 percent this year.
That doesn’t necessarily mean states are providing less money, the report says. Instead, “it may simply reflect shifting perceptions of how much it costs to keep up with the escalating threats school systems face,” it says.
States are also puzzling through how they can be most effective in helping districts ward off attacks, said Julia Fallon, the executive director of SETDA.
“I think states are trying to figure out what their role is [to] help districts,” Fallon said. “Some districts are large enough to have a cybersecurity staff, while smaller districts may not. So what’s the state’s role?”
A new federal grant program may help make up for some of the funding gap, at least at the district level.
The Federal Communications Commission has launched a $200 million, three-year pilot project that might provide some relief. Schools and districts will be eligible to receive up to
$13.60 per student annually to help cover the cost of certain cybersecurity services and equipment.
Federal Courts Allow Transgender Girls to Play On Girls Teams in 2 States While Cases Proceed
Challenges to laws barring transgender girls from playing on girls sports teams made some headway last week as federal court action lifted restrictions in two states, at least temporarily, against four transgender girls who were trying to play on their schools’ girls sports teams.
A three-judge federal appeals panel upheld an injunction Sept. 10 that partially blocks an Arizona law barring transgender women and girls from college and school sports.
In New Hampshire the next day, a federal judge gave two other transgender girls the go-ahead to try out and play on girls school sports teams while they challenge a state ban.
The injunction in Arizona applies only to the two challengers as the case is litigated. One is an 11-year-old transgender girl who takes a puberty blocker, and the other is a 15-year-old who has taken puberty blockers for four years.
The appellate panel noted the district court had found based on expert testimony that transgender girls who begin puberty-blocking medication and hormone therapy at an early age “do not have an athletic advantage over other girls.”
The appeals court said the state law does not afford transgender women and girls equal athletic opportunities because it permits cisgender women and girls to play on any teams, male or female, while transgender women and girls may play only on male teams. The law also permits all students other than transgender women and girls to play on teams consistent with their gender identities, the court said.
“Transgender women and girls alone are barred from doing so,” the court said. “This is the essence of discrimination.”
In New Hampshire, meanwhile, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Landya McCafferty found the challengers were likely to succeed in their lawsuit against the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. She also found that the students “demonstrated a likelihood of irreparable harm” in the absence of a preliminary order.
Before the law was enacted, both of the girls had been participating in girls’ sports at their schools the judge said. “There is no indication in the record that plaintiffs’ participation in school sports has caused the state or anyone else the slightest modicum of harm.”
Lunch Fees Taking a Toll On Parents, Watchdog Says
Pay more, get less. Some parents are feeling that way as they shell out transaction fees to buy their kids lunch at school.
More schools are turning to cashless payment systems for student lunches, and in doing so, more districts have contracted with processing companies that charge as much as $3.25, or 4 percent to
5 percent, per transaction, a new report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finds. Though legally schools must offer a fee-free option for families to pay by cash or check, the report says, there’s rarely transparency around it.
“It wouldn’t have been a big deal if I had hundreds of dollars to dump into her account at the beginning of the year,” said one mother about her daughter’s lunches. “I didn’t. I was paying as I went, which meant I was paying a fee every time. The $2.50 transaction fee was the price of a lunch. So I’d pay for six lunches, but only get five.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has required districts to inform families of their options since 2017, but even when parents are aware, having to pay by cash or check to avoid fees can be burdensome.
In its review of the nation’s 300 largest public school districts, the CFPB found that 87 percent of sampled districts contract with payment processors.
Within those districts, the companies charge an average of $2.37, or 4.4 percent, of the total transaction each time money is added to a child’s account. For families with lower incomes who can’t afford to load large sums in one go, those fees can hit weekly or even more frequently, increasing costs disproportionately. Families that qualify for free or reduced-price lunch pay as much as 60 cents per dollar in fees when paying for lunches electronically, according to the report.
While payment companies maintain that school districts have the chance to negotiate fees and rates, the CFPB found that complex company structures “may insulate companies from competition and make school districts less likely to negotiate.”
Vaping Losing Teen Appeal As Rate Hits 10-Year Low
Could teenagers be paying attention to health warnings about smoking—in all its forms? New data suggest that just might be so.
Fewer adolescents are vaping this year than at any point in the last decade, government officials report, pointing to a shrinking number of high school students who are using Elf Bar and other fruity, unauthorized e-cigarettes.
The latest survey numbers show the teen vaping rate fell to less than 6 percent this year, down from 7.7 percent in 2023. More than 1.6 million students reported vaping in the previous month—about one-third the number in 2019, when underage vaping peaked with the use of discrete, high-nicotine e-cigarettes like Juul.
This year’s decline was mainly driven by a half-million fewer high school students who reported using e-cigarettes in the past month, officials said. Vaping was unchanged among middle schoolers, but remains less common in that group, at 3.5 percent.
Federal officials noted that the drop in vaping didn’t coincide with a rise in other tobacco-industry products, such as nicotine pouches.
Sales of small, flavored pouches like Zyn have surged among adults. The pouches come in flavors like mint and cinnamon and slowly release nicotine when placed along the gumline. This year’s survey shows 1.8 percent of teens are using them, largely unchanged from last year.
Officials from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attributed the drop in vaping to recent age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers, including Chinese vaping companies that have sold their e-cigarettes illegally in the United States for years.
Use of the most popular e-cigarette among teens, Elf Bar, fell
36 percent in the wake of FDA warning letters to stores and distributors selling the vapes, which come in flavors like watermelon ice.
Teen use of major American e-cigarettes like Vuse and Juul remained significant, with about 12 percent of teens who vape reporting use of those brands.
