Juneau School District Superintendent Bridget Weiss has announced that she plans to resign at the end of the school year.
After weathering a pandemic and years of stagnant state education funding, Weiss says it felt like the right time to move on after 39 years in education. The number of school administrators resigning across the U.S. has grown considerably since the pandemic began.
“There’s a reason why there is a lot of leadership turnover in the country,” Weiss said. “They’re just — the last years have been intense. The work is really real, to work through a pandemic.”
Weiss grew up in Juneau and graduated from Juneau-Douglas High School. She left to go to college and began her teaching career in Washington state.
She returned to Juneau nine years ago to take a position as director of student services after a stint as the principal of North Pole High School. The Juneau school board voted unanimously to make her the superintendent in 2019.
She was named 2022 Alaska Superintendent of the Year last fall and received recognition for her dedication to education and support for families and youth.
Weiss announced her decision in an email to district staff on Monday.
“I just really wanted to allow the district plenty of time to work through their processes, and try to do that as well as I could, you know, for the better of the district,” Weiss said.
She will submit her letter of resignation to the Board of Education at its Nov. 8 meeting. After that, the board will decide how to proceed with the process of searching for her replacement.
Weiss said she’s not certain what the future holds, but she plans to remain in Juneau.
