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ST. LOUIS — It started on April 5, when Kirkwood schools Superintendent David Ulrich announced plans to retire.

A week later, Wentzville’s superintendent resigned. On June 5, Parkway’s announced his retirement. And in August, so did Webster Groves’ and Fort Zumwalt’s. Then came the firing of St. Louis Public Schools’ chief, followed closely by an announcement from a large charter school network’s executive director.

In all, seven St. Louis-area school system chiefs have either been ousted or announced their departures over the past six months.

School boards across the area are hunting for new superintendents at the same time — even as a dwindling number of candidates are interested in the top spots, experts and educators say. And those who do apply are more likely to have little or no experience in the job.

It’s a side of the educator shortage often left out of the conversation. Last academic year alone, 12,533 school vacancies — including administrators, counselors and teachers — were . Missouri schools employ more than 80,000 educators overall.

Kirkwood’s school board knows about the superintendent shortage and started the search process quickly.

“It’s a time for change for many school districts in our area,� said board President Nikole Shurn. “I just hope that we all can find quality candidates that best fit our communities.�

As of August, Missouri schools had 89 superintendent vacancies. Higher numbers of departures in the previous two years — 101 in 2023 and 105 in 2022 — means more than half half of the state’s 554 school districts have seen superintendent turnover since 2022, according to the Missouri Association of School Administrators. The majority were filled by first-year chiefs.

“There’s a nationwide teacher shortage, and that has spilled over to the administrative roles, including the superintendency,� said Kevin O’Mara, president of the search firm School Exec Connect.

Superintendents oversee budgets, staffing, strategic planning, day-to-day operations and carry out the will of elected school board members.

They are also the public face of a district, a job that requires them to represent a district’s interest to taxpayers. And replacing them often requires a lengthy process that typically involves the hiring of firms and national searches.

Superintendents like Parkway’s Keith Marty, who has had 13 years on the job, are becoming anomalies.

Current public school superintendents in the St. Louis area have served an average of four years in their roles.

Nationally, O’Mara said, most only serve about three years.

Less experience, more money

Most superintendent vacancies are filled by candidates who have never been superintendents before, according to data from the school administrators association.

Of the 89 vacancies in 2024, 61 have been filled with first-year superintendents. Out of the 101 total openings in 2023, first-year hires filled 63. In 2022, it was 76 out of 105 open positions.

“They’re willing to work hard; they’re enthusiastic,� said Doug Hayter, executive director of the association, known as MASA. “But they simply don’t have the experience that many of their counterparts had in the past when there was a little more stability.�

Neither teacher nor superintendent salaries have generally kept up with inflation over the past two decades in most of the largest school districts in St. Louis and St. Charles counties.

But superintendent salaries have risen 50% to 100%, while average teacher salaries rose much less. Superintendent pay in the Mehlville School District, for example, jumped 96%, while teacher pay rose only 35% from 2003 to 2023.

The Fort Zumwalt School District has seen the opposite. Former Superintendent Bernard DuBray, who retired in June 2023 after 38 years on the job, had at times refused raises or only accepted small ones, school board President Erica Powers said. He made the same amount — $211,835 — in the last three years of his tenure, state reporting shows. Far less experienced superintendents in the St. Louis area make much more than that.

But this “messed up the system,� Powers said. Now, Fort Zumwalt is looking at other districts’ pay as they look to replace DuBray’s replacement, Paul Myers, 52, who plans to retire at the end of the school year.

“We don’t need to be the highest, we certainly don’t want to be the lowest but we want to be fair,� Powers said.

How a superintendent’s salary is determined varies. Consulting firms can recommend salaries. Some school boards will look at their neighbors and offer competitive pay based on that, said MASA’s Hayter. Supply and demand also play a role, he said.

Earlier this year, state Rep. Ben Keathley, R-Chesterfield, tried to cap superintendent salaries to no more than 5½ times that of their district’s beginning teacher salaries. The bill did not pass.

Mark Jones with the Missouri National Education Association said the discrepancy isn’t about “superintendents vs. teachers.�

“This is really a resource issue,� Jones said. “Are we putting the resources our students need into our schools? I think, in Missouri, the answer is no.�

St. Louis districts lose chiefs

Marty let the Parkway School District board know a year and a half in advance of his retirement. He knew they would need all the time they could get.

“My suggestion to the board was to get out early,� said Marty, 71.

With Marty’s departure, Kevin Carl of Hancock Place School District will become the area’s longest-serving superintendent. Carl also started in 2011.

Other reasons for superintendent departures — or potential departures — have nothing to do with retirement.

Former St. Louis Public Schools Superintendent Keisha Scarlett was fired last month after just one year on the job and a nearly three-month investigation into her spending practices. Scarlett plans to appeal the decision.

Her replacement and close colleague, Millicent Borishade, does not yet hold a superintendent’s certificate in Missouri, which is a requirement for full state accreditation. Borishade applied for a certificate in September, according to state officials. The SLPS board has not said whether it plans to conduct a search for a permanent superintendent for next school year.

Former Wentzville School District Superintendent Danielle Tormala departed with a $1 million buyout in April after serving for two years. Tormala, 47, became Wentzville’s superintendent as the district grappled with political conflicts and national media attention for its response to the pandemic and debates over race and gender in curriculum and library books.

Interim Superintendent Brian Bishop currently leads the district as Wentzville “continues to explore its options,� said district spokeswoman Brynne Cramer.

In 2022, Tormala’s predecessor, Curtis Cain, left Wentzville for the Rockwood School District — a former culture war hot spot that’s seen four different superintendents over the past five years (including one interim).

And earlier this month, the executive director of KIPP St. Louis charter schools, Kelly Garrett, said he will step down in June after serving the charter network for over a decade.

While Marty said his job has been rewarding in many ways, it’s also been challenging.

The hours are long and can leak into nights and sometimes weekends. And it requires more political engagement now, Marty said. Conversations with representatives take a lot of his time when the Legislature is in session.

“Every year, there’s hundreds of bills introduced, some good, some not so much in the best interest of public education, from my perspective,� Marty said.

The biggest challenge Marty’s successor will have is attracting quality leaders, he said.

“I know there’s plenty of work ahead,� Marty said. “And I know we also face a need to continually try and encourage people to look at this career.�