Crane superintendent retires after 43 years, reflects on district changes

After 43 years in Crane Schools, Laurie Doering is leaving a district she entered in 1983 as a physical education teacher and later helped lead as principal, assistant superintendent and superintendent. Her retirement at the end of June hands Crane Elementary School District to Dale Ponder on July 1, 2026.

Doering’s imprint is measured less by a single program than by the length and breadth of her service inside one system. She became superintendent in 2017, had served as assistant superintendent since 2014 and took her first principalship at Valley Horizon Elementary School in 2001. That path gave her a view of Crane from the classroom, the campus office and the district office, a perspective few Yuma County education leaders can match.

In a June 3 interview, Doering looked back on the district’s early years through the era of Gary Knox, the growth Yuma saw in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the more recent slide in enrollment. She also pointed to the way technology has transformed classrooms over four decades and said Crane students have continued to post strong math performance. Her comments underscored how much the district has changed while still carrying the same core responsibilities.

The practical question for families is what changes with her departure. The district already serves preschool through grade 8 at 12 schools, and the Arizona Department of Education’s 2024-2025 report card still lists Doering as superintendent. Public profiles place Crane Elementary District enrollment in the roughly 5,700 to 6,000 range, with student-teacher ratios around 21-to-1 to 22-to-1 and a student body that is majority Hispanic, near 85% to 90%. Those numbers matter because Arizona school funding is driven primarily by student enrollment.

That means the next superintendent inherits a district where leadership turnover is only part of the story. Arizona’s K-8 accountability model also weighs proficiency, growth, English learner performance, grade 8 math readiness, grade 3 ELA, chronic absenteeism, special education inclusion, subgroup improvement and a science bonus. Doering said she hopes Crane will keep building on its strengths. For families, the larger change is the handoff itself: a long-serving leader is stepping away, and the district’s next phase will be shaped by how well Ponder protects what Crane has built while responding to enrollment and funding pressures that are not going away.