Note: Due to a technical error, this Oak Ridge Schools press release did not publish earlier this month with a chart comparing the Oak Ridge and Maryville school districts. We did publish the chart, which you can see here.

There have been a lot of questions recently about the number of Oak Ridge Schools’ administrative positions.

On the state website, it gives the impression that Oak Ridge Schools has added multiple administrative positions between 2007 and 2013. If the numbers reported were correct, it would appear that the number of administrators increased by about 63 percent since 2007.

In reality, Oak Ridge Schools only reclassified one existing position to an administrative position in that time period. Why is there a discrepancy between district data and state reporting?

First, we need to define administrator. In Oak Ridge, administrators are defined as superintendents, assistant superintendents, principals, vice principals, district directors, district supervisors, and district assistant supervisors. If you look at Oak Ridge Schools’ human resource files, we have had the following numbers of administrative positions between 2007 and 2013: [Read more…]