At a school board meeting Monday, Lawrence Public School’s superintendent, Rick Doll, announced his retirement effective June 2016. Doll has been superintendent since July 2009 and is stepping down to take a position at Kansas State University next year. He will be a professor and executive director for Kansas Educational Leadership Institute (KELI), a mentoring program for new administrators across the state.

“[I am most excited for] educating the next generation of administrators, that’s really going to be fun to work with the next generation,” Doll said.

Doll announced his resignation early in order to give the school board appropriate time to find a replacement.

According to his biography on the school district website, Doll has taught and administrated for 35 years prior to taking his position in Lawrence in 2009. Doll also spent two years as an associate professor at KSU.

“The thing that I feel the most positive about is the equity work across the district,” Doll said. “We have raised the achievement for all students and closed achievement gaps, made some real nice gains with graduation rates. [Also], our building project, the fact that we’ve remodeled a lot of our older schools and the construction of the new College and Career Center.”

The board of education will ultimately decide who the next superintendent is.

“Typically what happens is they also involve community and faculty members and administrators to ask the characteristics of a new superintendent,” Doll said. “So, when they interview people they can ask the right questions but ultimately that decision is [with] the board of education.”