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Tight Budgets Put Some Superintendents on Part-Time Status

Tim Foist, the superintendent of the Mingus Union High School District in Cottonwood, Ariz., walks outside the district’s high school. Like some other superintendents, he is moving to part-time status to save money for his cash-strapped district.

—Laura Segall for Education Week

Part-time, double duty more prevalent

By Christina A. Samuels

Superintendent Tim Foist made a pitch to his school board earlier this school year to reduce administrative costs—starting with himself.

Mr. Foist is the superintendent of the 1,200-student Mingus Union High School District in Cottonwood, Ariz., a single-school district 100 miles north of Phoenix. He argued that it makes financial sense for the district to make him a part-time superintendent, paying him for 145 days of work instead of 260.

It's an arrangement that seems to be making sense to a growing number of other...