Austin Beutner, superintendent of the Los Angeles United School District since 2018, and Janice Jackson, CEO of Chicago Public Schools since 2017, have announced their departures as their contracts expire June 30. 

In a letter announcing his decision, Beutner said serving as superintendent had been “the most rewarding job I’ve held during my nearly 40-year career.” He said his intent this spring was to “remain focused on the task of ensuring that schools reopen in the safest way possible while helping in a seamless leadership transition.” 

The Los Angeles Board of Education issued a statement thanking Beutner for his “dedicated service” and praising his “unwavering leadership.” The board named deputy superintendent Megan Reilly to the position of interim superintendent, as of July 1. 

Beutner was a businessman, former Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles and Publisher of the Los Angeles Times who founded a nonprofit that worked with schools to provide free eyeglasses to children in low-income communities but who had not previously managed a school district. In his resignation letter, Beutner listed accomplishments include providing a vast safety net for families including meals, supplies, computers and internet access, COVID tests and vaccinations, launching educational programing partnerships with organizations ranging from PBS to Fender Guitar as well as significant progress in early literacy and Black academic achievement. Over the last three years, Los Angeles Unified has been transformed from a top-down, one size fits all bureaucracy to a community-based approach where 44 leadership teams have the responsibility for their local schools. The foundation for all of this is the trust which has been rebuilt with families in the communities served by Los Angeles Unified during his tenure. 

Beutner acknowledged that holding the superintendency was an arduous undertaking, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Three years as superintendent of Los Angeles Unified is – I don’t know – 30 in dog years? It’s an extraordinarily rewarding job and an extraordinarily taxing job,” he said, according to the Times. 

Los Angeles has reopened schools with plans for expanded summer school offerings and the return to full-time in-person classes in the fall. Beutner called it “fitting that a new superintendent should have the privilege of welcoming students back to school in the fall.” 

Jackson shared a similar view, writing in a letter to the community that she believed “it is time to pass the torch to new leadership.” 

A graduate of the Chicago school system, Jackson has spent more than two decades in the Chicago school system, beginning as a social studies teacher and debate team coach in 1999. She also served as a principal and chief education officer before being selected as the CEO of the nation’s third largest school district. 

She has been appointed Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to pursue its strategic efforts to improve high school and college attainment nationwide, beginning this summer. 

In a news release, Carnegie President Timothy Knowles described Jackson as “an extraordinary leader.” Jackson said she looked forward to leveraging “the lessons from Chicago in the pursuit of educational, economic, and racial justice for young people across the nation.” 

Under Jackson’s leadership, the district experienced gains in student achievement, increases in graduation rates, college enrollment and completion rates, and expansion of academic programing in communities that have historically been underserved.

Both leaders were at the helm as their districts experienced teachers’ strikes in 2019, Chicago for 11 days and Los Angeles for six days. 

The Los Angeles school system is second largest in the country, with approximately 600,000 students, and Chicago is third largest, with more than 355,000 students.