Education
BY BRADLEY DOUNTZ
Lamar CISD’s Roosevelt Nivens reflects after winning National Superintendent of the Year award
Lamar CISD Superintendent Roosevelt Nivens was named the 2026 National Superintendent of the Year by AASA, The School Superintendents Association on Feb. 12, marking the first Texas nominee to win the award in 25 years. Nivens, who assumed his role in LCISD in 2021, previously served as superintendent for Community ISD in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He is also the president-elect for the Texas Association of School Administrators. Community Impact spoke with him about his recent award win, his goals as superintendent and plans for district growth. Answers have been edited for length and clarity. Congratulations on your huge win as National Superintendent of the Year, what does this award mean to you personally and to the district as a whole? Personally, it’s a tremendous honor because my parents spent a lot of time with us and teaching us to be good people, good young men, keep your faith in Jesus. I’m a momma’s boy, my momma’s in heaven—I wish she was here—but I know she sees it. It’s a legacy thing for my kids. I struggled in school, school was not a good experience for me growing up, but my own two children now see, they know that and they see this and they know if you put in the work and you pay it forward, treat people right, you do the things you’re supposed to do, it’ll pay out for you. Professionally, here, it simply means I have teachers and adults doing the best they can for kids because I wouldn’t be National Superintendent of the Year if we were a failing district.
What are some of your goals over the next year in your role? Lamar CISD can and will be the premiere school system in this nation. People that know me know if I wouldn’t believe it, I wouldn’t say it. I’m that guy. If I don’t believe it, I don’t say it because I don’t believe in just saying any old thing to people, but our kids deserve that. What are some of the district’s biggest challenges? If you’re looking at a challenge that is tangible—it’s growth. Managing the growth and people that are coming because people want an opportunity for their kids and so the challenge for me is making sure every parent that comes to our district that their child has an exceptional school experience—that’s hard to do when you have 49,000 kids and over 6,000 employees. As LCISD experiences hypergrowth, what steps do you think are most important for the district to take as it prepares for more housing to come? Plan and prepare for the future—it’s all about the conversation, it’s about being able to garner support and get everybody around the table that needs to be around the table. So, that’s not just the school system, it’s also county commissioners, elected officials, it’s mayors—it’s everybody. It’s parents, everybody that has something to do with this town and this school district, outside of the school system, needs to be at the table to help us prepare and plan for the future.
COURTESY LAMAR CISD
Tell me more about the Innovative School Day initiative—where did you get the idea from and why is this important for teachers and students alike? One was work-life balance for teachers. The other was helping students do something that’s innova- tive, something they normally would not do in a school setting. I was scrolling TikTok one day. My daughter and I have a weird sense of humor, we send each other funny TikToks of people in church signing off key, something like that. I scrolled on one, I found one, it was a young man who had just graduated college and the title of his post was “What’s the purpose of school?” In that, it was kind of spoken word and he said, “I can do the Pythagorean theorem, but I can’t do my own taxes” and man, that hit me like a ton of bricks. I was like, school, we’re supposed to help kids through life—we’re not just supposed to help you do the Pythagorean theorem. I haven’t used it yet since I graduated, but I have had to do my taxes.
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