Students walk into a Department of Defense Education Activity school at Fort Benning, Ga., on Aug. 4, 2025. DODEA officials announced Wednesday the elimination of community superintendents and their support staff as part of a cost-cutting effort to reduce bureaucracy. (DODEA)
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — The Defense Department education system is getting rid of positions described as district superintendents’ alter ego, as its new leader pushes to funnel more resources back into schools.
Elimination of an unspecified number of community superintendents and their support staff in the Department of Defense Education Activity, also known as the Department of War Education Activity, or DOWEA, was announced Wednesday in an email to all agency employees.
“At the heart of this effort is a commitment to simplify processes, reduce unnecessary layers of bureaucracy, and create clear, more effective lines of community and support,” DODEA director Paul Craft said in the email, which Stars and Stripes viewed.
Craft, who’s been at the helm of DODEA for about one month, went on to say that some district-level positions will be cut.
In response to questions, DODEA declined to say how many. According to its website, there are 21 community superintendents: eight in Europe, five in the Pacific and eight in the United States.
Brian Perry, Department of Defense Dependent Schools’ South Carolina and Fort Stewart community superintendent, speaks at Charles F. Bolden Elementary School, in Laurel Bay, S.C., on Aug. 9, 2023. DODEA is eliminating some community superintendent positions under an organizational review announced Wednesday. (Kyle Baskin/U.S. Marine Corps)
The savings from the reorganization “will be reinvested in classroom positions,” DODEA said in a statement Thursday.
Tasks of community superintendents include managing school affairs, monitoring budgets and financial plans, providing policy guidance and handling other leadership responsibilities, according to a 2023 vacancy announcement.
The salary range for that opening at Yokota Air Base, Japan, was listed as from $107,010 to $138,690 per year.
DODEA’s 161 schools are divided into three regions: the Americas, Europe and Pacific. Each region is managed by an area director. In each of the areas, schools are organized into districts headed by superintendents.
For example, the district superintendent for the Europe Central District oversees 16 schools in Germany across the Kaiserslautern, Wiesbaden and Baumholder communities.
The district includes more than 7,000 students and 1,500 employees, according to DODEA’s website. Two community superintendents are assigned to the district.
As of April, a little over 66,000 students are enrolled at DODEA schools, including its virtual high school, according to the agency’s enrollment data.
Community superintendents and their secretaries will be offered a chance to retire under a program that allows organizations that are downsizing or restructuring to temporarily lower the age and service requirements for retirement.
No DODEA employees are currently subject to involuntary termination or separation, Craft said in the email.
DODEA is also offering buyouts, a one-time payment for voluntary separation, but the agency didn’t say what the amount is expected to be.
It also gave no information on what kind of jobs community superintendents who chose not to voluntarily separate or retire would be offered or when the positions will be eliminated. The school year ends in early June.
About a year ago, under previous director Beth Schiavino-Narvaez, DODEA underwent a more sweeping reorganization involving hundreds of positions.
That move was also described by agency leaders at the time as an effort to increase support for schoolchildren.
Those changes included the addition of administrative officers at nearly every school, increases in the number of school psychologists and elimination or reassignment of most school-based educational technologists and speech-language and special education assessors.
