The Lake Travis ISD school board plans to appoint an interim superintendent while looking for a permanent replacement for Paul Norton, who resigned last week. Norton, who joined the district in 2020, agreed to step down from the role just under two months after he was placed on leave pending an investigation into misconduct allegations.
After Friday's vote, School Board President Erin Archer said the investigation was now complete. While she did not share details about the allegations, she said the complaint was not related to students or the district’s finances.
As part of that agreement, Norton will receive more than $158,000 in severance pay. He will also get an additional $60,255 for personal leave days and vacation days he hadn’t used.
Professor David DeMatthews, who is director of the Cooperative Superintendency Program at UT Austin, said while more than $200,000 is a large sum, the agreement will likely save the district money in the long run.
“If this is something that continued to be investigated, if the board moved to terminate, and there was some legal battle between the superintendent and the board, this could be drawn out, it could cost the district lots of money,” he told KUT.
He said community members, several of whom called for more transparency during Friday’s special school board meeting, may be frustrated that details of the investigation are private.
“But hopefully the board that they elected to represent the school district’s best interests did the best job they can under these very difficult situations,” he said.
DeMatthews said approving the agreement with Norton allows the board to pivot to finding a new leader more quickly. Finding a superintendent, he added, could be a challenge because the pool of candidates is limited.
“I would not say that there’s a deep bench of seasoned superintendents that have demonstrated time and again that they can be highly effective,” he said. “And so it’s challenging out there for school districts to look at who’s available, interview folks and find the right fit for their community.”
Kevin Brown, the executive director of the Texas Association of School Administrators, said the market for a superintendent in Texas is especially competitive right now because a lot of districts are looking for new leaders.
“We’ve had a spike in the number of [superintendent] openings statewide and it’s around 22% of districts that had turnover in the past year,” he said.
Brown said one reason for the uptick in turnover is political polarization at the national level that has trickled down to local communities. Another factor has to do with the financial struggles a vast majority of school districts in Texas are facing.
“In my 34 years in public education, this is the most challenging time that I am aware of,” Brown said. “I think it is increasingly a more challenging job to be a superintendent because of the lack of resources from our state and because of the divisiveness in our country.”
DeMatthews also said it's a tough time to be a superintendent in Texas, but Lake Travis ISD may be attractive to potential candidates because it's a "relatively high-performing" district in an affluent community. These types of districts, he added, typically offer higher salaries.
According to data from the Texas Education Agency for the 2023-24 school year, Norton’s base pay was roughly $418,000. That's higher than the base pay for the superintendents of neighboring districts Eanes ISD and Austin ISD. For comparison, Lake Travis ISD has about 11,000 students while Austin ISD — where the superintendent has a base salary of $362,250 — has more than 72,000 students.
Archer, the Lake Travis ISD school board president, said in a statement that trustees plan to hire a recruiting firm to find a permanent superintendent.
“Community and stakeholder input will be important elements of the search,” she wrote.
In the meantime, the school board plans to appoint an interim superintendent. Pam Sanchez has been serving as the acting superintendent since Norton was placed on leave. She is the district’s assistant superintendent for business services.
