Three local school district superintendents are stepping down: Danny Brown of Clarkdale-Jerome, Steve King of Cottonwood-Oak Creek and Dennis Dearden of Sedona-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. 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 in the district that Carter said he has noticed is the 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 as the biggest example.
“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.”
King’s relationship with Carter began around a decade ago when he was working for the superintendent in Camp Verde and was asked to attend a meeting with Carter in attendance.
“I’m kind of smiling a bit because the first time I met him, I didn’t know who he was,” King said. “I got into a bit of an argument with him and the next day, [the superintendent] called me and she
says, ‘What did you say to Tim Carter?’ I called him up and ever since then he’s been a friend he respected that we can disagree and we could do it civilly and I always respected that about Carter.”
“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.
“[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 school board’s review of applicants began on May 2.
Dennis Dearden
Dearden had been serving in dual roles as both district superintendent and SRRHS principal as a cost-saving move. That came to an end with the board’s approval of teacher Heather Isom as the new SRRHS principal during the May 2 school board meeting.
“It’s with excitement and sadness that I leave the district,” Dearden said. “I’ve worked as hard as I could in this district, the five years I’ve been here and I’m proud of that. Yet I’m excited about my retirement and new opportunities that lie ahead.”
Dearden said his decision was a matter of timing. His daughter will be graduating SRRHS and enrolling at the University of Arizona soon and, at the age of 71, 2024 would have been his 50th year in education.
Rumors of districts teaching “critical race theory” and other controversial content also influence superintendents, Dearden said.
Last year, a couple that visited SOCSD were curious to see if the district was teaching CRT.
“I’m certainly not aware of people in our area that’s [teaching CRT],” he said. “We’re all trying to do the best job that we can for our students and the shootings that are occurring across the nation, you just pray that nothing will happen in your school.”
