Could Hillsborough become the next school district to elect its superintendent?
TAMPA — Voters in Lee County elected their first school superintendent in five decades a year ago.
It came two years after voters approved a referendum changing the superintendent position to an elected one. For the previous 50 years, members of the local school board chose who would lead the district. In making that transition, Lee has joined the majority of school districts in Florida (38) that elect their superintendents.
But while that may be the norm in Florida, it’s a complete outlier in the rest of the United States. Among the more than 13,000 school districts in the country, Alabama is the only other state with elected school superintendents.
The state’s largest school districts (such as Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach) have their school superintendents chosen by their school board members. Now a Republican state lawmaker would like to make Hillsborough — the third largest school district in the state and seventh largest in the nation — the latest district with an elected superintendent.
https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/10/24/could-hillsborough-become-the-next-school-district-to-elect-its-superintendent/