Lamar CISD Superintendent Roosevelt Nivens was named the 2026 National Superintendent of the Year by The School Superintendents Association, or AASA, on Feb. 12, marking the first Texas nominee to win the award in 25 years.
Nivens, who assumed his role in LCISD in 2021, previously served as superintendent for Community ISD in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He is also the president-elect of the Texas Association of School Administrators.
Community Impact spoke with him about his recent award win, his goals as superintendent and plans for district growth. Answers have been edited for length and clarity.
What does this award mean to you personally and to the district as a whole?
Personally, it’s a tremendous honor because my parents spent a lot of time with us, teaching us to be good people, good young men, keep your faith in Jesus. I’m a momma’s boy—my momma’s in heaven; I wish she was here, but I know she sees it. It’s a legacy thing for my kids. I struggled in school. School was not a good experience for me growing up, but my own two children now see, they know that, and they see this, and they know if you put in the work and you pay it forward, treat people right, you do the things you’re supposed to do, it’ll pay out for you.
Professionally, it simply means I have teachers and adults doing the best they can for kids because I wouldn’t be National Superintendent of the Year if we were a failing district.
Some days I wake up and say, “Man, you’re the national superintendent of the year.” It is such an honor. I can’t put words to it. What was going through my head was, “Make sure you say thank you to your wife [Karla].” She’s such an important part of my life. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her. So make sure you say thank you to her and the kids. In my head, I’m like, “OK, make sure you give credit where the credit is due.”
The National Superintendent of the Year award was based on several criteria, including leadership for learning, communication, professionalism and community involvement. What professional examples of those stand out to you as reasons for winning this honor?
Community involvement: I like to be visible. I’m hardly in the office. I like to be out on campuses in the community because I want people to see who the leader of the education system is.
Communication: I’m very clear in my communication. I don’t want anyone to leave my presence ... wondering what I said or what I meant.
Professionalism: I’m very serious when it comes to taking care of young people. The school business attracts a lot of attention. We attract a lot of business partners, we attract a lot of sponsors, and I want to make sure everybody knows that if you want to do business with Lamar CISD, my students have to be your No. 1 priority.
Leadership for learning: That’s why we’re here—kids have to learn, and I think the leadership for learning is creating systems and programs that are out of the box. ... This should be more of a collaborative, solution-driven problem-solving atmosphere for our young people.
What are you most proud of accomplishing since becoming LCISD’s superintendent?
When I see students or young people now or kids—I call them kids—but when I see them out in the world, they have great jobs, and they’re productive citizens, and they’re family people. You know they’re good people. I think that’s the biggest success you can have.
What are some of your goals over the next year in your role?
Lamar CISD can and will be the premier school system in this nation. People that know me know [that] if I wouldn’t believe it, I wouldn’t say it. I’m that guy. If I don’t believe it, I don’t say it because I don’t believe in just saying any old thing to people, but our kids deserve that.
What are some of the district’s biggest challenges?
If you’re looking at a challenge that is tangible—it’s growth. Managing the growth and people that are coming because people want an opportunity for their kids, and so the challenge for me is making sure every parent that comes to our district that their child has an exceptional school experience—that’s hard to do when you have 49,000 kids and over 6,000 employees.
As LCISD experiences hypergrowth, what steps do you think are most important for the district to take as it prepares for more housing to come?
Plan and prepare for the future—it’s all about the conversation. It’s about being able to garner support and get everybody around the table that needs to be around the table. So, that’s not just the school system; it’s also county commissioners, elected officials, it’s mayors—it’s everybody. It’s parents, everybody that has something to do with this town and this school district, outside of the school system, needs to be at the table to help us prepare and plan for the future.
Where did you get the idea for the Innovative School Day initiative from, and why is this important for teachers and students alike?
One was work-life balance for teachers. The other was helping students do something that’s innovative, something they normally would not do in a school setting.
I was scrolling TikTok one day. ... I scrolled on one, I found one, it was a young man who had just graduated college, and the title of his post was “What’s the purpose of school?” In that, it was kind of spoken word, and he said, “I can do the Pythagorean theorem, but I can’t do my own taxes,” and man, that hit me like a ton of bricks.
I was like, school, we’re supposed to help kids through life—we’re not just supposed to help you do the Pythagorean theorem. I haven’t used it yet since I graduated, but I have had to do my taxes.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I played a lot of sports, so I don’t watch sports. When I say that, people are like, “What?” I don’t watch any sports at all. I watch home and garden television.
The days can sometimes be dramatic, and so I get home, and I turn that on, and it’s peaceful. The most drama I want to see is when they’re rebuilding a house and they pull up some wood and see some termites.
What else should readers know about you?
I would not be here if it wasn’t for my board. The seven people I sit up there with, very supportive people. They ask hard questions, they ask the right questions, but they’re very supportive. What I appreciate about them is that the eight of us all want young people to be successful.
