In addition to Sedona-Oak Creek School District Superintendent Dennis Dearden, two local school district superintendents are stepping down: Danny Brown of Clarkdale-Jerome and Steve King of Cottonwood-Oak Creek.

Yavapai County School Superintendent Tim Carter has also decided that he will not seek reelection at the next election.

Tim Carter

“My term is ending on Dec. 31, 2024, so I have another 20 months,” Carter said. “At that point … I’ll have 50 years total [in education]. So that’s probably enough.”

Carter plans to continue to reside in Prescott but says he looks forward to more time hunting and fishing rather than spending 60 to 70 hours a week at work. He plans to stay involved in education — and to put his 500 volumes on Abraham Lincoln to use to write a new biography on the 16th president covering Lincoln’s relationship with the country’s territories.

One of the biggest changes Carter said he has noticed is a decline in public interest. When he first started, over 100 people would apply for a teaching position. “These days we’re lucky if we get four to five applicants,” he said.

“I think the jobs are just getting tougher because the issues are much more polarized and much more political than they’ve ever been before,” Carter said. “We are not only dealing with traditional educational issues, we’re now dealing with external political issues which may or may not have any impact in that particular locale.”

The current political climate is contributing to people’s decision to leave superintendent positions, Carter said, and he offered managing the COVID-19 pandemic as the biggest example. However, he said that individual decisions come down to the usual reasons of health, better paying opportunities elsewhere and so on.

While the powers and duties of the Yavapai County Education Service Agency will not change when he leaves, Carter said.

Navigating political storms will be his eventual successor’s biggest challenge.

“We’re working in a different environment, where instead of the [local school] district being stable and fairly harmonious and being a service to that community, there’s now just more friction than, I think, most of us have ever seen in a career around those sorts of things,” Carter reflected.

Steve King

“It has been one of the honors of my life to serve this district for the past eight years,” King said in his March announcement. “It is with a heavy heart that I am announcing my upcoming retirement as superintendent of this district. I wanted to give you as much notice as possible to prepare for the upcoming transition of leadership in this district.”

“I’ve been in Cottonwood now eight years, six of them as a superintendent,” King said. “Very challenging times. You get to a point in your life when you say sometimes change is not a bad thing … it’s just continuing to serve. There’s a lot of challenges with their kids [and] with their families. A lot of kids and families are struggling just with providing basic needs. I want to be at least a little part of that solution in my own little corner of the world.”

King and Prescott Unified School District Governing Board member Kara Woods both plan to run as Republicans for Carter’s position.

On April 25, the Arizona School Boards Association gave the Cottonwood-Oak Creek school board a presentation on what the selection process for King’s replacement will look like. The board plans to start the selection process in September.

“[I’m] anticipating leaving on Dec. 31,” King said. “If my services are required and they need me, I’ve made that open offer to the board that I would remain, provide whatever service that will be needed after that date, but there will be for them to decide as well.”

Danny Brown

“Every superintendent has their reasons why they’re leaving,” Brown said. “I can’t pinpoint a trend why we’re all leaving.”

Brown, who has been in education for 35 years, will be leaving his position as the superintendent of the Clarkdale-Jerome School District when his contract expires on June 30.

“I spent 10 years as a social studies teacher in middle and high school. Started out my career in Winslow, Arizona … born and raised in Indiana, came out in 1989,” Brown said. “After my wife and I had our first child, I took a charter school director job in Prescott, and that’s where I started my career in Yavapai County … I just want to thank the education community for allowing me to be a part of this district.”

The application window for the Clarkdale-Jerome superintendent’s position closed on April 27, following a community forum the previous night at which residents discussed the leadership qualities they felt necessary for the position. The school board’s review of applicants began on May 2.