Dedicated mentorship, training for potential superintendents, and trust-building are some of the solutions to curb the growing number of superintendents in California who are leaving the job, according to panelists at Tuesday’s EdSource roundtable discussion, “Superintendents are quitting: What can be done to keep them?” Some of the most cited reasons for exiting the profession include polarizing politics, division over the effects of the pandemic-related school closures, and stress. “No matter what we may have thought, superintendents became the public face of the pandemic and, in most instances, they were merely following public health dictates,” said panelist Carl Cohn, former superintendent of the Long Beach and San Diego school systems. Four out of the five panelists on the roundtable left their superintendent positions within the last four years. At least one cited the Covid-19 pandemic as his reason for leaving sooner than he planned. They are far from alone: Superintendent turnover in California grew by nearly 10 percentage points between the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school year, according to research by Rachel S. White of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. After the 2021-22 school year, over 18% of superintendents across the state stepped down.