Burbio School Tracker 9/9: Wider Net

1. The most important individual in setting district policy is the district Superintendent, and Burbio's Superintendent Turnover Tracker measures changes in that role nationwide by tracking when positions open and where the outgoing Superintendent is going. When the position is filled we track where the new Superintendent came from and their previous role. Our first chart shows the source of the new hires, and covers 1,370 positions we have tracked that have turned over since July 2024:

The next chart shows the stated reason for the Superintendent's departure covering the same period:

2. In addition to Burbio's checkbook register database, which covers districts representing over 20 million students and allows clients to discover vendors being paid by districts, Burbio has introduced a related "Competitive Signals" service that reads district school board documents to identify any vendor in a given category that districts are working with, or considering. It casts a wider net by getting at the question, "Are there vendors in the market that we didn't think to even ask about?" and picks up the complete cycle of district consideration.

• Clients in the construction and capital equipment space often search for architects and contractors, with whom they work closely on projects and who will get awarded business early in the process. Many of these firms are local. Some examples of recent searches in that category:  
  • Lincoln County School District, OR, recently contracted with ZCS Architects for a project related to protection against earthquakes, and separately chose Glas Architects for a series of other construction projects in the district after interviewing Pivot Architecture, Integrus Architects, and Oh Planning + Design, Architecture.
  • Cape Henlopen School District, DE, awarded contracts to Conventional Builders, Northeast Contractors, and Richard Y. Johnson, Inc, for work on the middle school. 
  • Athens City Schools, AL, is working with architects McKee & Associates and Brown O'Dell Architects on multiple district projects. For one of the projects, the board reports, "The contractor has repeatedly failed to complete the items we have pointed out  . . . "

• The security industry covers a wide range of suppliers including such examples as these: 
  • Jackson County School Board, FL, contracted with Integrated Fire & Safety Solutions for a fire alarm system. 
  • Henry County School District, GA, contracted with NetPlanner Systems for surveillance system upgrade.
  • North Shore School District 112, IL, renewed an agreement with Seconds Matter for annual monitoring of their Blue Point emergency response system.
• For content filtering and cybersecurity, here are some recent examples:
  • North Kansas City School District, MO, recently renewed a contract with Fortinet.
  • Lower Merion School District, PA, recently renewed a contract with iBoss. 
  • Iron County School District, UT, highlighted its use of Palo Alto Networks in a recent meeting.

This approach is particularly helpful for emerging industries such as AI training and professional development where the competitive environment, and the nature of services being delivered, is very fluid. And as noted, it can also work well for verticals such as tutoring and mental health that have very dynamic local supplier bases. 

3. Burbio collects strategic plans and LCAPs as they are issued by districts nationwide. This week we take a look at frequency of terminology mentioned in strategic plans issued so far in 2025 versus those issued during 2023 and 2024. The analysis does not include California's LCAPs, which include a uniquely wide array of references and so we evaluate them separately: