Abelardo Saavedra, who spent 36 years working in public school education and served as superintendent to Houston Independent School District, will be joining Texas A&M University’s Department of Educational Administration and Human Resource Development in the fall.

“Dr. Saavedra is one of the most outstanding educators we have in the nation, especially in the public schools,” said Fred Nafukho, department head of educational administration and human resource devel opment.  “I learned of him a few years ago and have been interested in his work ever since.”

At A&M, Saavedra will be co-directing the Administrative Leadership Institute, which has been each November for more than 25 years. The institute is an annual conference was designed to focus on a critical issue that will help school leaders create or transform schools to help children become successful students.

“We were very happy to hire him because our students will get hands-on work with one of the nation’s leading educators,” Nafukho said.  “He’s going to use his years of experience to improve the quality of our K-12 program and to help those students who wish to become school superintendents as well.”

For his part-time teaching and administrative position, Saavedra accepted a salary of $75,000, despite the fact that he was paid more than five times the sum as Houston ISD superintendent.