School district consolidates administrative positions
The Lee County School Board adopted 12 job descriptions for academic services, business services, human resources and executive services division, which will support a consolidated organizational chart designed to put more money in classrooms.
“When I bring you recommendations, from all my heart, I truly believe this is the team and structure that is going to lead us to number one,” School District of Lee County Superintendent Dr. Denise Carlin said at Tuesday’s meeting “Not only are you holding me accountable – I am holding myself accountable. If we don’t achieve our goals as a district, I will fire myself in four years. That is how serious I am about myself in this work.”
Carlin was elected to her office in November. She is the district’s first elected superintendent since the 1974 when voters made the position one appointed by the school board. Voters overturned that decades-old decision in the 2024 election.
The new organizational chart will help the district help children, Carlin said.
“I want you to know, all of you to know, any job I bring forward, I am holding myself accountable that each one of these people that goes into this job is able to do the job necessary. None of these job changes were brought about because anybody was doing anything wrong. I have nothing but respect for people currently in the jobs. This is about a structural change that is necessary to move the organization forward. I am passionate. I want the best for children. I want to see our district do better and we can.”
The board approved the adoption of the following positions: Deputy Chief of Staff; Arts, Athletics, Activities and Administration director; Communications, Marketing and Public Relations director; Core Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment director; Physical and Mental Health Services director; Risk Management and Internal Compliance director; Strategic Planning and Portfolio Management director; Organizational Performance and Analytics executive director; School Transformation senior director; Physical Mental Health Services assistant director; Budget and Grants Director and Physical and Mental Health Services senior coordinator.
Board member Debbie Jordan was the sole board member that voted against the approval of the job descriptions. One of the issues she had was changing the chart to consolidate multiple directorships into one for Physical and Mental Health Services.
“We keep speaking about safety, kids’ needs, outcomes, student services, but when I look at this and see the units that we pulled out, they directly affect our students and they are specialized people in those fields,” she said.
Deputy Superintendent Dr. Ken Savage said the school counselors, school social workers, school psychologists and the nursing program are all part of the comprehensive model.
“The only thing that is changing is job titles,” he said.
Carlin said there will be a director, assistant director of physical and mental health and a senior coordinator.
“Those jobs will be filled with those folks that have the skills to supervise to do what is necessary,” she said. “Instead of three directors, we will have one director over all of that work. We are consolidating bodies of work, but supporting underneath.”
The restructuring of the organizational chart includes changes to 50 positions and job descriptions – all in the central office, which will save an estimated $1 million for the district.
The district’s central office departments also reviewed their independent budgets and implemented a 5% reduction, an analysis that saved $15.9 million.
“It’s the right-sized chart,” Carlin said.
She said the entire 13 months spent on the campaign trail, the community shared with her a strong desire for more dollars to go into the classrooms and retain high quality teachers.
“When we have surrounding counties that pay more to their teachers than we do, we continue to lose teachers to the south, the north, and now the east,” she said.
Over the last year, Carlin said they have saved $20 million.
“That is a significant savings. This is round one. We will continue to look at ways to reduce the bureaucracy in the district office. We embedded a succession plan, a natural succession plan,” she said. “Under the directors – under the hood – there are assistant directors, coordinators, senior coordinators. In many instances as we have consolidated work at the director level and above, we provided assistant directors under the hood.”
Carlin said an organizational structure is necessary to achieve goals, while holding her accountable.
The school board heard a presentation during its Tuesday afternoon workshop from Savage regarding the proposed organizational changes. He took the board through multiple data visuals from the 2009-2010 school year to present day to depict how the district has grown over the past 15 years. The comparison also shared the growth in administrative positions during that time frame.
Savage said the administrative unit never increased more than 1% despite the significant growth in students from 2010 to 2013. The first big jump in administrative positions occurred in 2016 with a 3.8% jump and then a 4.3% jump in 2018.
“In 2023, we had the single largest increase in administrative units we ever experienced, a double digit. What a story that tells when you see a massive increase in administrative units,” Savage said of the 14.3% increase.
From a performance standpoint, the district’s highest ranking was second place during the 2010-2011 school year, a ranking that has gradually decreased over time. That same school year, the district was an A district.
During the 2024-2025 school year, the district grade is a B and ranked ninth in the Big 10.
From the 2010-2011 school year to the 2024-2025 school year there has been a 33% increase in students, 23% increase in instructional positions, 1% increase in principal positions, 111% increase in district administrative coordinators and a 98% increase in district administrative directors and executive directors.
“Our school administrators, principals have hardly increase at all, but the central office more than doubled in terms of administration,” Savage said.
The desired state is the expectation to become an A district again and join the more than 22 other districts in the state, he said.
“That is our expectation, to be first. We would like our leadership and action drive us to that outcome,” Savage said. “We cannot live in our problems. Let’s get to solutions. Let’s get the problem solved.”
He said the district still needs a great central office, but they have to take the view of understanding to create accountability, which the organizational chart supports high performance and accountability.
“While this is a huge change in a lot of people, we didn’t create the central office size it is today. The net total in size of people is six people,” Savage said. “We had to let people know they have jobs to the end of the year – you may have to apply for a different job, a lower title.”
Many of the positions were consolidated – two areas that were related were brought together.
“You see a leaner top level organizational chart,” Savage said of 69 directors or above were brought to 50. “It should be aligned and unified, so they are truly putting students in the forefront.”