Jeff Mayo was named Superintendent of Arlington Community Schools by a unanimous vote of the ACS Board of Education in April 2020. The 36-year educator is the second superintendent in the history of ACS and took on the role to continue the journey of excellence the community has come to know.

Mr. Mayo’s tenure with the district began in 2014 as Chief of Staff after Arlington residents voted to create their own municipal district, which has since grown into one of the top school districts in the state of Tennessee. Under his leadership as superintendent, ACS has been named the #1 Top Workplace® in the Memphis-Metro Region, as voted by the district’s employees. In 2022, The Top Workplace® program also presented Mr. Mayo with Memphis’s overall Leadership Award, given to one leader in the Memphis area for having the highest rated score out of the companies surveyed.

In 2023, just four years into his tenure at ACS Superintendent, Mr. Mayo was named a finalist as the National Superintendent of the Year by the National Association of School Superintendents (NASS), serving as the only representative in Tennessee.

Mr. Mayo began his career in education in 1988 as a classroom teacher at Mt. Pisgah Elementary School. He then transitioned to administration in 1993, working as an assistant principal at Elmore Park Middle School and principal at E.E. Jeter Elementary School, respectively, until 2000 when he became Human Resources Supervisor for Shelby County Schools. He served as Director of Human Resources and Human Capital at SCS until 2013 and then Chief of Staff for ACS until his appointment to superintendent.

Mr. Mayo’s experience in education and human resources has positioned him on several state and national boards throughout his career. He has served as a board member for the American Association for Employment in Education (AAEE), a national organization that connects higher education to school systems, and was once appointed as president of the Southeastern Association for Employment in Education and for the Tennessee Association of School Personnel Administrators. Additionally, his expertise on employment applications has been published several times in the AAEE Job Search Handbook for Educators.

One of Mr. Mayo’s proudest accomplishments was winning the AAEE Innovative Programs and Practices Award for creating the ACS PLUS Experience, a program that recognizes and celebrates employees for providing an A+ experience for students, families and coworkers in the district. He was also named Teacher of the Year at Houston Middle School and New Teacher of the Year at Mt. Pisgah Elementary.

A resident of Arlington for more than 20 years, Mr. Mayo has committed himself and his family to the town and its education system. His wife, Gail, is an Interventionist at Donelson Elementary School, one of the district’s elementary schools, and his daughter, Grace, is a Class of 2022 Arlington High School graduate and a current sophomore at the University of Tennessee at Martin.