Leander ISD superintendent Dr. Bruce Gearing is expected to retire from his position, according to multiple sources and the agenda from the school board’s Dec. 11 meeting. The board will vote to appoint an acting superintendent in his place at their next meeting.

Gearing will assume the role of “superintendent emeritus” to support the district as they transition to a new leader, according to a statment released Monday afternoon. The superintendent said his decision to retire was not made lightly.

“This district and this community have changed my life,” Gearing said. “I have witnessed firsthand the extraordinary dedication of our staff, the brilliance of our students, and the passionate engagement of our families. It has been an honor to serve Leander ISD, and I look forward to this next chapter with deep gratitude.”

School Board President Anna Smith thanked Gearing for his time in the district in a statement she released to CPHS News on Friday evening.

“We deeply appreciate Dr. Gearing’s years of service to Leander ISD and the students we serve,” Smith said. “We wish him a joyful and fulfilling retirement.”

Gearing’s departure marks the end of a six year tenure that he began with enthusiasm when he joined the district in 2019. During his time as superintendent, Leander ISD earned multiple state and national championships for student teams and programs, including College Board’s AP Large District of the Year in 2023. The district also passed a $763 million bond package, which included the modernization of Cedar Park High School and the South Performing Arts Center. In his first sit-down interview with CPHS News anchor Ella Neel in 2019, Gearing emphasized his leadership approach centered on communication, relationships and listening to the community.

“I want them to know that I’m all about people and relationships,” Gearing said. “We have to communicate really effectively together, but that communication has to be two-way. We can’t just be telling everybody things, we want to hear back…what’s working, what’s not working.”

Last month, on Nov. 14, Gearing was announced as a finalist for the superintendent job at Conway Public Schools in Arkansas, surprising many members of the school board. The news of his retirement also follows a tense board meeting Thursday night, where trustees and the superintendent debated the district’s school closure and consolidation process.

At the meeting, trustees questioned how the final recommendation should be made, raising concerns about whether the board or the district leadership should outline which campuses may be considered for consolidation ahead of the Dec. 11 meeting. Smith pressed Gearing on where that responsibility should fall.

“You’re essentially looking for the board to make that decision and that motion and that recommendation” Smith said. “You’re going to give us this information, and then you’re just going to throw it in front of us and be like, ‘All right, guys, y’all pick and choose what schools you want to close.’ I’m just trying to understand, if we’re going with that process now, why wasn’t that process applied earlier when you made the recommendations?”

Gearing pushed back, arguing that his administrative team had provided a clear path earlier in the fall.

“We had a decision point set for Oct. 9,” Gearing said, “We had a framework laid out. We were redirected with a very clear mandate through a board resolution about how to bring this information going forward. We’ve done exactly that. We’ve done it well.”

He told trustees they would need to decide soon what they wanted to include on next week’s agenda and warned that waiting could cause problems for students and staff.

“At some point in time, the board is going to have to have a vote on whether you want to close schools or not.” Gearing said. “My recommendation to you is that if you’re going to close schools, that has to happen before we get out for the winter break. Because we will not have the runway, if it happens in January, to make sure that we can provide everything that needs to get done so that student experience can happen well on every school in our district starting in the 2026-27 year.”

While Gearing said he was willing to work with trustees to “make all of that happen,” he reiterated that the final decision belonged to the board. School Board Vice President Gloria Gonzales-Dholakia responded by saying she believed superintendents in similar situations elsewhere had taken a more active role in guiding the process.

“I’ve been watching for the last year school board meetings all over the country as they’re going through closures,” Gonzales-Dholakia said. “And while it is a board decision, I think in every single one of those, I saw the superintendent bringing with administration a recommendation of how to move forward.”

She said Gearing’s comments suggested the opposite.

“Right now, what I just heard you say is, ‘I’m not going to make a recommendation. It’s y’all’s decision,’” she said. “And you’re right, it is our decision. But I haven’t seen [that].”

Gonzales-Dholakia referenced Austin ISD’s recent consolidation process, noting that its superintendent publicly led discussions and presented clear recommendations to the board.

“[Other districts] have [had] that clear direction from their superintendent and their admin that ‘this is what we recommend,’” Gonzales-Dholakia said, adding that Leander ISD has been discussing consolidations for almost two years. “I would hope that there would have been a recommendation.”

Gearing countered Gonzales-Dholakia’s claim, suggesting the board itself had contributed to the delays.

“I will say very clearly that on Sept. 9, we had a very good conversation in this room about what that plan could look like,” Gearing said. “And on Sept. 18, we brought a presentation back to you that we were not allowed to give in this very room. And so for you to say that I have not made a recommendation to this board is just flat wrong.”

Before the board began its discussion, several speakers during public comment expressed frustration with the delay in making a decision.

“Families are looking for clear, concise and definitive information,” the third speaker during public comment said. “The reality is that this conversation affects far more than two campuses, and we need to set the best example for the process and implementation going forward. Let’s be a shining beacon on a hill for the future.”

Cece Oelfke, a fourth grader at Steiner Ranch Elementary, also spoke out against the consolidation plan.

“I know I’m just a kid, but even I can see something doesn’t make sense,” Oelfke said. “Our school has fewer than 400 students, and the plan says that we could lose half our assistant principals, half our counselors, half our librarians, and even half our receptionists. How’s a school supposed to work with half the people who keep us safe and help us learn? You can’t take away the people who make our school strong and then expect families to pick us. That’s like taking the wheels off a bike and telling us to ride faster.”

Gearing’s retirement news also comes as the district faces additional challenges, including a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for allegedly failing to post copies of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, as required by Senate Bill 10.

“Leander ISD has accepted donated posters and has actively implemented the law in accordance with state requirements,” the district said in a release Nov. 18. “At no point has Leander ISD taken action to defy or disregard the law.”

Leander ISD is not alone in confronting difficult decisions. Other area districts, including Eanes ISD and Austin ISD, have also consolidated low-enrollment campuses in recent years, with Austin ISD closing ten schools and Eanes ISD closing one.

“This is difficult, and I wish we didn’t have to do it,” Austin ISD Superintendent Matias Segura said at a board meeting at the time of the decision. “But the pressures are gargantuan, and without significant change, we will not be the school district that ultimately can protect who we are moving forward.”

CPHS News has reached out to Leander ISD and Dr. Gearing for comment and is awaiting a response.

CPHS News reporter Michael Moracchi contributed to this report.

This article has been updated as new information developed.