Nivens’ commitment to leadership, communication, professionalism and community involvement helped him achieve the on Thursday at The School Superintendent Association’s national conference in Nashville.

The organization selected Nivens from three other finalists in Maine, Kentucky and Maryland. He’s led a district of nearly 50,000 students west of Houston since 2021, part of his 30 years of education experience that began with teacher and principal roles in Dallas.

“If you’re smart, you realize you don’t get here by yourself,” he said. “It’s a lot of people — 49,000 kids back home, 6,500 staff are working right now doing a phenomenal job. But it’s a tremendous honor.”

Nivens spoke with The 74’s Lauren Wagner on Friday at the conference. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What initiatives and developments are you most proud of during your tenure at Lamar Consolidated?

We are opening an in-district charter school for kids with autism spectrum disorder. The traditional setting works for some, but not for all. So what can we do to support a group of students who want that support? I sat with a parent back in November, and they were paying $40,000 a year to get their child support outside of school. So we want to try to support kids and families. That’s our purpose. It’s opening in August, but we’ve been planning this for two years.

I would also say we’ve increased the number of students who are thinking about post-secondary [plans]. I secured private funding for a college superintendent trip. So I take two juniors from every high school — 14 kids who are first-time college goers — and I take them out of state. It’s fully funded by private donors. Those kids haven’t even been out of the county. We’ve done it three years in a row now. The first year was Louisiana, last year was Arizona and then North Carolina.

We’re opening a brand new career technical education center in August. Lamar didn’t have a CTE center when I got there — we were partnering with different colleges. I don’t believe kids should have to decide what they’re going to do so early. The system is built where you have to say, ‘Okay, child, you have to choose advanced academics or advanced band or athletics. Pick and choose.’ Give them options. You know, they’re 14 years old. We wanted to make sure everybody had options on what they wanted to do. 

Your district has rapidly grown since you started your role in 2021. What challenges have you dealt with to keep up?

We’ve added about 14,000 kids. There are 49,000 now and when I got there, there were around 36,000. I’ve opened 15 schools in five years, and that takes planning. My chief operations officer and his team do a great job helping me and bringing me data, and we think about where schools would go and when they need to go. 

Another challenge is that since we’re growing so fast, we have to rezone schools. We’ve had a lot of resistance from parents. Finally, I publicly intervened, because we may take students out of one historic school and put them in a brand new campus, and parents are like, ‘No, I went to that school.’ But that’s not fair. I was like, ‘Just because you went there 50 years ago doesn’t mean these kids should still be in that school.’ Our first bond issue in 2022 was $1.5 billion, and the one in 2025 was $1.9 billion. And the community supported it. 

What’s your favorite part about your job?

Definitely campus visits. I love listening to our babies. I taught elementary school and didn’t like it because they were too small — I was a high school guy. But now when I have a tough day, I go to a campus and go see some pre-K babies, some kindergarten babies. They’re the sweetest. And they don’t judge anything. One kid was like, ‘You’re as big as a truck!’ And I said, ‘That’s the laugh I needed today, man.’ By far, that’s my best part of my job.

Did you want to become a superintendent when you first began teaching?

No. I didn’t want to. I wanted to be a head football coach. That was it. I worked with a lot of great people, but I worked with a few who were not good with kids. I would have my [students] call me and say, ‘Coach, I don’t have a ride.’ Or, you know, ‘My mama’s high.’ All kinds of stuff. And I would go pick them up or whatever I needed to do. After school, I would take them home, and I would buy them food. And I didn’t see [some teachers] doing that. And I was like, ‘Why are you in this job if you’re not doing that?’ They always would talk bad about the job and I was like, ‘Do you hate kids?’ So I would go home and talk to my wife about it, and she would say, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m their peer. I can’t do anything about it.’ She said, ‘Yeah, you can. Become a principal.’

So as a principal, I did all the hiring, and if you didn’t know how to teach math, that was fine. If you’re a good person and you love kids, we could teach you how to teach math, right? Then I started working with other principals who I thought weren’t doing as much as they could for their campuses. So it was kind of the same mindset — you know what, I’ll become a superintendent.

What keeps you up at night right now as a superintendent?

In general it’s the contrast between COVID and now. When COVID hit, all the parents had to teach their own kids and their teachers were heroes, right? Now it’s like the world has forgotten that, and the reverence for the job and for the profession is gone. You know, give teachers an opportunity. It’s an automatic, ‘My son said this.’ And, ‘Why did you do that? I’m going to get you fired.’ It’s a cancel culture. So I talk a lot in my community about grace. We’re all human. The teacher might have done something wrong, and I’m not saying we’re always right, but let’s have a conversation about it. I don’t think anybody has bad intentions, right? But let’s have some grace with each other. Let’s be more kind to each other.

The finalists were asked about top education issues and trends in a Jan. 8 online discussion. Here’s some of what they had to say.

Roosevelt Nivens

Nivens has led Lamar Consolidated Independent School District in south Texas since 2021. The district, which has roughly 49,000 students, has been fast-growing, with 15 schools opening during Nivens’ tenure. 

As an educator with 30 years of experience, Nivens serves on the Texas Association of School Administrators. He has received top superintendent awards in recent years from the National Association of State Boards of Education and the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents. Before his current role, Nivens was a teacher and assistant principal in Dallas. He holds degrees from Liberty University and Texas A&M-Commerce.

When asked about artificial intelligence use in schools, Nivens said AI helps teachers “get back to the human side of teaching.” His district is creating policies so educators can utilize AI tools for administrative tasks like lesson planning. 

“We want to help students use it responsibly,” he added. “It’s our job, so they will know exactly what it is and what they should and should not use it for.”

Family engagement is also a popular topic in Nivens’ district. He said Lamar Consolidated not only hosts parent workshops, but the district organizes events at places like apartment complexes to cater to families at their homes

Heather Perry

It’s been a decade since Perry became superintendent of Gorham School District, which serves 2,800 students in southern Maine. Over the past 30 years, she has worked her way up from educational technician, middle school social studies teacher and building principal.

Perry serves on the executive board of the Maine School Superintendents Association. She’s the first district leader in her state to be named a national finalist for Superintendent of the Year. She received degrees from the University of Southern Maine and the University of Maine.

Perry said her district began highlighting post-graduate options besides college roughly eight years ago. She helped create , a K-12 program that exposes students to career pathways. Kindergartners learn about future career goals, while middle schoolers get hands-on experiences in fields like health care, business and technology through community partnerships. High schoolers venture outside the school building to get a head start on their careers with local businesses.

Perry said she would rather see  juniors and seniors traveling to early college classes, internships, apprenticeships and “doing real-life career experiences” than sitting in school.

The program began with 35 students and now is at capacity, with 140. It has grown from five business partners to 90.

“There used to be a stigma attached to students who attended (career technical education) schools,” Perry said. “That stigma is gone now. Students who want to go to MIT or engineering schools see the value of going into a (career technical education) program. We’ve done a nice job in Gorham.”

Demetrus Liggins

Liggins is superintendent of Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington, Kentucky, the state’s second-largest district with more than 42,000 students. He’s been in the education field for 25 years, serving in roles from a dual-language teacher to building principal. He was previously a superintendent of two Texas school districts.

In 2020, Liggins was recognized as a superintendent to watch by the National School Public Relations Association. He holds degrees from the University of Texas, Stephen F. Austin University and California State University.

Liggin’s tenure at Fayette County Public Schools has also been the focus of scrutiny over finances. In September, two Kentucky lawmakers over what they described as budget inconsistencies and . He was also by his budget director, prompting an by the school board. 

While Liggins hasn’t publicly responded to the investigation, he in November that budget inconsistencies were the result of miscommunication.

When it comes to funding, Liggins said, cuts made by the Trump administration have cost the district at least one federal grant, and extra money for Title I, II and III grants is at risk. He’s turning to state legislators to help fill future funding gaps.

With budget shortfalls a top concern, Liggins said he’s increasing his involvement in his own district’s finances. Administrators used to report on the district budget to his deputy superintendent but now come to him directly. He said he’s also attending conferences with his business office to learn more.

“That understanding is very helpful when you go to speak to legislators about the (funding) formula,” he said. “Background knowledge has been very helpful.”

Sonja Santelises

This is Santelises’ 10th year as chief executive officer of Baltimore City Schools, which serves 77,000 students. She was previously the district’s chief academic officer and has held leadership positions in Boston Public Schools, was a lecturer at Harvard University and served as a vice president at The Education Trust.

Santelises is a Carnegie Foundation board member and chair of the Council of the Great City Schools and has been recognized for her leadership at the and levels. Santelises earned degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University.

Baltimore City Schools has been accused of and during Santelises’ tenure. 

The key to attracting talent and preventing teacher burnout is to have high-quality principals, she said. Teachers in Baltimore City tend to stay if they’re placed in schools where their principal understands how to support them. 

“Making sure we’re keeping salaries and benefits competitive (is important) because teaching is hard work,” she said. “Everybody wants to know they are being recognized.”

Santelises said her district also prevents turnover by allowing teachers to use a career ladder to change their roles so they spend less time in the classroom and more time coaching other staff.