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Roger Pfeuffer is beginning his last few weeks as superintendent of the Tucson Unified School District. His last official day is June 30. That's just 27 days from today — or about 650 hours, not that anyone is counting — until Pfeuffer begins his second retirement from the area's largest school district.

We wish him well, we wish him peace and quiet, and we thank him for doing his best in what must be one of Tucson's most impossible jobs.

Pfeuffer was brought in as a temporary superintendent in the spring of 2004 after Stan Paz resigned as superintendent rather than be fired by Governing Board members who left no doubt they no longer supported him.

Pfeuffer's contract was eventually extended and he has led the district through some tough times over the last four years. The don't-we-all-love-each-other-because-we're-so-happy-together phase didn't last real long. But no one really expected it to because, well, this is TUSD.

We give Pfeuffer credit for taking on an incredibly difficult job and serving Tucson's children at a time when he could have said no thanks and remained in retirement. But he didn't. When the district he'd been with off and on for nearly 34 years asked him for his help, he came back and did his part.

Under his watch TUSD has been through trying times — the health-insurance-accounting snafu, the school-closures controversy, years of deficits, plummeting enrollment, the conditional end of the federal desegregation court order. We have not always agreed with Pfeuffer over the years and we have not been shy about saying so, but we never doubted his intention to do what he thought was best for the district, in the best way possible.

Pfeuffer's tenure as superintendent followed a familiar path, at least publicly. He came in amid relief that he was a familiar presence in the district, with a reassuring manner and a clear dedication to children and education.

But as the months and then years passed, and he faced hard decisions, that support became less rock-solid. Pfeuffer made recommendations, like offering teachers a 1 percent raise last year, without building a public case, and public support, for such belt-tightening.

The same happened this year with recommendations, among other things, to close four elementary schools and reduce the number of school librarians and counselors as a way to cut into a multimillion dollar budget deficit. These proposals were made without meaningful public involvement and ultimately failed, in part because the Governing Board reversed its own decision under lobbying pressure. No superintendent can be successful in that kind of environment.

Managing an enterprise as massive as TUSD — with more than 100 individual schools, large employee groups and their respective organizations, and a territory that geographically and demographically spans the metro area — cannot be easy. Add in a dysfunctional Governing Board that shies away from making necessary but unpopular decisions, a pernicious climate of institutional inertia and serious financial problems stemming from a history of adding programs and expenses even while student enrollment decreased and it's clear: Being TUSD's superintendent is one whopper of a job.

The incoming superintendent, Dr. Elizabeth Celania-Fagen, can take lessons from Pfeuffer's experience. We encourage her to understand the value of openness in a district like TUSD because no plan, no matter how well thought out, can succeed if the people it affects feel excluded.

We also hope Celania-Fagen possesses Pfeuffer's seemingly unending patience and calm — which probably has roots in his time as an elementary school teacher — and his sense of humor.

It's easy to stand on the outside and point out missteps, but it is something altogether different to stand at the center of a constantly shifting organization and lead it in a good direction.

We wish Roger Pfeuffer and his family the best.