Benson retiring as Cedar Rapids school superintendent

CEDAR RAPIDS - David Benson, the superintendent of the Cedar Rapids Community School District, will retire at the end of the school year, the district announced Wednesday.

Benson, a longtime teacher and administrator, joined the district in 2009 as superintendent. He previously worked as a superintendent in Kansas and Missouri and is in his 32nd year overall as a superintendent.

During his six-year tenure in Cedar Rapids, Benson has overseen a district with declining enrollment in the wake of the 2008 flood and several innovative initiatives, including the Iowa BIG project-based high school.

Under Benson, the district also has made efforts to renew some of its facilities, building a new administrative center and working to narrowly pass an increase in its physical plant and equipment levy, or PPEL, in September. Benson oversaw the closing of Monroe Elementary School and the transition of Polk Elementary School into an alternative school.

Cedar Rapids schools also have expanded programs for English language learners and started a state-funded teacher leadership program that allows instructors to learn from the successes of their colleagues.

'A superintendent accomplishes very little by himself,” Benson said. 'It's working through others, and with others, that makes the difference.”

School board president Mary Meisterling said Benson told her earlier this month that he likely would retire. Benson made a five-year commitment to the district when the board hired him in 2009, Meisterling said. This is his sixth year.

'He's just been tremendous,” Meisterling said. 'He's a visionary thinker, he's very strategic, he understands the process of school budgeting.”

'He's put us on a good path to continue to challenge the traditional classroom and provide innovative programming for all of our students,” she added.

Benson officially will retire on June 30, 2015. He notified the board of his decision in an letter Wednesday morning, Meisterling said.

Benson said he was planning to retire after this year before the Cedar Rapids school board extended his contract earlier this year. The three-year extension Benson received is standard for a superintendent, he and Meisterling said.

That contract, which runs through June 30, 2017, includes a clause that allows Benson to collect a $30,000 longevity payment for staying through June 30, 2015. If Benson had remained with the district for an additional year, that payment would have increased to $35,000.

Benson technically retired from previous positions in Kansas and Missouri but said he viewed those as career moves.

'A lot of people call it retirement when you access the retirement system,” he said. 'I don't. It was just part of a lengthy career.”

Teachers praised Benson for his collaboration with them and said they hoped his successor would have the same approach.

'He never forgot coming from the classroom, and I don't think that's always the case,” said Tammy Wawro, a former Cedar Rapids teacher and the president of the Iowa State Education Association. 'He always went back to ensuring that we talked about what's good for kids, and what was good for teachers at the time.”

Julie Bradley, an English language learning, or ELL, teacher at Hiawatha Elementary School, said the growth Benson led in the district's ELL programs was necessary.

'From my perspective, it's just an obvious - of course it would have grown,” Bradley said. 'I'm happy that he's embraced the diversity and recognized the need for hiring more ELL teachers. He does seem to understand that it's a growing population, and their needs are unique and need to be met.”

The board is working to schedule a special meeting later this month to begin the search for Benson's successor, Meisterling said. The board hopes to have a successor in place sometime in the spring, she said, to allow the new superintendent to work with Benson on a transition.

Meisterling said she already has reached out to the Chicago-based search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, which the district used in its last two superintendent searches, for a search proposal. But she said the board also will reconsider candidates who applied for the job when Benson was hired, and depending on the interest of internal or local candidates, it might not conduct a national search. She declined to name any possible candidates.

Benson said his decision was bittersweet.

'I think personally, I'm ready to make this move,” he said. 'It's been a long career, and I think it's time.”