Once a month, about two dozen men and women drive hours to a hotel conference room in Macon to learn how to run a school district.

With the average tenure of a superintendent in large American school districts being just three years, some of them joke about the perils of their quest.

“If they don’t like you, you’ll get fired,” quipped Ed Shaddix, an assistant superintendent in Gwinnett County, one of the classmates in the training program for superintendents.

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Students walk toward the Tate Student Center on the University of Georgia campus in Athens. State data released Tuesday shows that the rate of international students enrolling in Georgia’s public universities dropped dramatically this semester. (Jason Getz/AJC 2024)

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University of Georgia students are seen entering and leaving the main Library on the Athens campus on Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/AJC)

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