Jan. 14—LIMA — Lima schools Superintendent Jill Ackerman will retire in August.
The superintendent announced her retirement Monday when the Lima school board accepted her resignation, effective Aug. 1.
“It’s time for somebody new,” Ackerman told The Lima News.
Ackerman spent the entirety of her 37-year career within the Lima schools system, starting as a long-term special education substitute for Emerson Elementary in 1988.
The substitute teaching job morphed into a full-time position for Ackerman, who moved to Lima from her hometown of Fremont shortly after graduating from Bowling Green State University.
Ackerman later accepted another teaching job at North Middle School, where she was promoted to assistant principal and principal. She became assistant superintendent in 2002 and accepted the role as superintendent in 2012 with the retirement of Karel Oxley.
The district did not hire a replacement for Ackerman after she accepted the promotion to superintendent.
Ackerman credits her decision to remain in Lima to the relationships she formed with colleagues, parents and students — who became the parents of her current students — and to her parents, who instilled in Ackerman the importance of commitment.
“You didn’t ever quit,” she said, adding: “[I] never had an interest in going anywhere else. I never applied for another job. I’ve always wanted to be here.”
Reflecting on her decision to retire, Ackerman said “there just comes a time when it makes sense.”
Ackerman saw Lima schools through the coronavirus pandemic, which created new challenges for student attendance and mental health.
She instituted a homeless liaison and food pantries in each of the district’s school buildings, so hungry students could take food home with them.
Lima schools became the first school district in Ohio to provide ALICE training, an immersive active shooter drill performed alongside the Lima Police Department, and one of the first districts to establish a health center at Lima Senior High School under Ackerman’s leadership, she said.
“The district is in a great position,” Ackerman said.
The next superintendent of Lima schools will confront challenges with student attendance and mental health, which worsened during the pandemic, as well as legislative mandates and “attacks on public education,” Ackerman said.
“A lot of people focus on the negative,” Ackerman said, so the next superintendent will need to “keep beating that drum” to remind people of what the district does well.
The Lima school board will meet in executive session at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 29 to begin the search for the district’s next superintendent.
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