After four years leading the Riverside school district, Superintendent Renee Hill announced her retirement Thursday.

Hill will step down this summer after finishing the current school year to ensure “a smooth transition,” a Riverside Unified School District news release issued Thursday afternoon states.

Hill’s retirement was prompted by the end of her contract and is not a disciplinary action, district spokesperson Liz Pinney-Muglia said Friday.

Hill has spent nearly four decades in the district. She started as a teacher and was an assistant principal before leaving in 1991 to work in telecommunications. She returned in 1998 and held various administrative posts until retiring in 2017.

Hill was asked to return in 2020 as chief academic officer, the post she held before being named superintendent in July 2021. She became the second woman and the first person of color to lead Riverside County’s second-largest public school system.

“I am honored to have served this community for decades,” Hill said in the release.

During her tenure as schools chief, Hill focused on school board priorities such as expanding music education to fourth graders, the release states. The district received several awards under Hill’s leadership, according to the release. For example, Riverside STEM Academy was named the No. 1 school in California and No. 10 in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, the release states. The district also won a California School Boards Association Golden Bell Award for the past five years.

Hill intends to spend more time with her family, Pinney-Muglia said.

The school board “expressed its deep appreciation” for Hill’s “unwavering dedication and transformative leadership,” the release states.

“Superintendent Hill is the finest and most dedicated educator I have worked with since joining the board in 2013,” school board President Brent Lee said in a statement. “Her contributions to RUSD will have a lasting impact on our students and community for years to come.”

In December, some called for Hill’s resignation in reaction to a November lawsuit alleging the district violated students’ First Amendment rights and denied students fair and equal access to athletics. In the federal lawsuit, a Martin Luther King High School student alleged she was replaced on her cross country team in favor of a transgender athlete.

Assemblymembers Bill Essayli, R-Corona, and Leticia Castillo, R-Corona, both sought Hill’s resignation at that December session and alleged the district mishandled the incident and violated the free speech and other rights of female athletes.

Last week, Riverside Unified announced a groundskeeper for the district was on leave after being charged with 19 felonies, including lewd acts on a minor younger than 14 years old. He was not assigned to a school.

At its Feb. 6 meeting, the Riverside school board’s agenda included a closed-door “mid-year review” of Hill’s performance.

The school board plans to discuss the process for finding a new leader, Pinney-Muglia said.