Papillion La Vista Community Schools says they hope to name new superintendent by February

PAPILLION, Neb (KMTV) — Papillion La Vista Community Schools is searching for its next superintendent after Dr. Andrew Rikli announced his departure.

I sat down with Rikli, who told me the district's process right now is looking at both internal and external candidates.

At the end of October, Rikli announced he would be stepping down from his superintendent role to lead Educational Service Unit 3 as its new CEO.

"It's a new opportunity a new challenge, a new adventure and looking at things objectively the national average for a superintendent is about 3 and half years," Rikli said.

Instead of leading 22 schools and 12,000 students, Rikli told me he is excited to take on the challenge of leading 86,000 students across 18 school districts.

The district is now leading the search to find the next superintendent.

"The board is both formally and informally already taking steps to form up committees, to determine time lines to determine processes," Rikli said.

Rikli said that while it feels like the district has a very strong pool of internal candidates to choose from, officials will also be weighing external candidates.

"We have an in-house leadership academy that we routinely tap for people that are Papillion La Vista employees that want to move into leadership positions," Rikli said.

After 14 years leading Papillion La Vista Community Schools, Rikli said his biggest reflection as he leaves will be the extraordinary people.

"This community is second to none. They are supportive to public education, they have been supportive of me. They're supportive of our schools and that's probably the one thing I will take with me as I enter that next chapter of my life," Rikli said.

Rikli told me the district's goal is to name a new superintendent by February, before he transitions to his new role on July 1st of 2027.

This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.