(49 Questions to Ask Your Board)
Prime evidence of flawed board governance has been high superintendent turnover. Between 1994 and 2004, 35 urban districts serving near 11 million students appointed 135 superintendents and interim superintendents. These turnovers usually resulted in further destabilizing districts desperately attempting to raise test scores and meet state standards.
― Thomas Glass1
If we are to judge its success a hiring process that ends with candidate selection and contract signature ends too soon. Many boards are too eager to declare success when they introduce their next superintendent. But success in superintendent hiring can only be measured by superintendent performance over time. Similarly, a hiring process that begins the moment the departure of the incumbent is announced has begun too late. Boards must prepare, and remain prepared, to hire the next superintendent, even (especially) when times are good.
This is a time when trustees can make their mark on a district. The board now faces its first traumatic decision in a superintendent search. Does it allow teachers, community members, and administrators to help in the selection? Does it request participation on committees and hold votes? Do board members merely ask for input and make their own choice?
― Alan Hafer2
The hiring of a superintendent is often called the most important task the board will be called on to do, because selection (and longevity) of the right educational leader is directly related to improved student learning.
“The board of education for xxx School District is looking for a well-rounded, visionary educational leader to fill the position of Superintendent of Schools.”
The above extract from a search announcement is typical, yet it illustrates a fallacy of thought about the superintendent’s role, and that of the board. It implies that the superintendent is expected to provide a vision for the district. Let’s face it – visions are stirring. They have the potential to inspire the entire community. But they require long-term care and nurturing to assure their eventual success, something the board as a more permanent entity is better positioned to assure than is the superintendent, who must manage current operations. The vision thing is a responsibility that the board as community representative should own. It should not be given away. Instead, the superintendent’s job should be to receive the community’s vision of education and figure out how to carry it out, but not to create that vision from scratch. A superintendent search should never wipe the slate clean.
Scenario: The district’s annual report highlighted numerous positive indicators of progress, but looking at the overall trajectory of student learning, the board could see it needed to go in a new direction. Then the superintendent announced that she had been selected for a regional superintendent role outside the district. The board announced a year-long search and named an interim superintendent. Three strong candidates, including the interim and two neighboring assistant superintendents, eventually were announced as finalists. After thorough vetting of candidates by board visits to each candidate’s district, inquiries by the teachers’ association, scrutiny by the press and public presentations by each candidate of their vision for the district’s students, followed by surveys and other forms of input to the board, the board announced its choice of a leader who would bring “game changing” strategies and launch the district in a new direction. Staff, members of the public, and the press lauded the decision and eagerly looked forward to the future.
For too many districts the record of school board success in the hiring process is not encouraging.
The late stages of hiring include negotiating a contract that cements the intended board-superintendent relationship, but the structure and contents of the contract are too important to be an after-thought. The contract should be ready in the board’s consciousness well before the selection process concludes. It should already be aligned with the job description and the board’s conception of its relationship with the superintendent. Again, it is essential to think about the contract before the excitement of candidate selection and the charm of the selectee in the interview process distract the board from exercising due diligence in this often neglected but most critically important of board tasks.
Repeated superintendent turnover inevitably creates challenges for a district:
Each successive superintendent is hired to implement a reform agenda. Each has incentives that encourage more emphasis on program initiation than on follow-through. The short expected tenure of superintendents means that few are in place long enough to oversee the full life cycle of a reform, and incoming superintendents are not rewarded for implementing a predecessor’s program. The result is ‘policy churn’ – an endless stream of new initiatives, with the schools and teachers never having time to become comfortable with any given change…School districts engage in a number of reform initiatives, with one generation of reforms following another…
― Frederick Hess3
An impediment that prevents boards from recognizing (and overcoming) the problem of policy churn over the long run is the relative brevity of the average board member’s tenure. For this reason, intentional recognition and nurturing of the board’s long-term institutional nature is essential. A board that can honor and make use of institutional memory to guide its long-term work will be more successful, especially if it remembers to do so during a superintendent search, before the excitement of the honeymoon period that begins with superintendent selection diminishes establishment of a serious employer-employee relationship.
The culture of a district may help shape the search process. This largely depends on the board.
Scenario: Although graduation rates and other indicators were on the upswing in this well-regarded district, the recently hired superintendent’s contract was not renewed and she resigned. The board did not make public the nature of their disagreement. It appointed an interim superintendent and began a national search with the help of a search firm. After initial screening, the board conducted several interviews in executive session and made telephonic background inquiries, then announced its “preferred candidate” after a six-hour interview, when it published the names of four finalists. The uproar that ensued revolved around issues in the previous superintendent’s departure, the lack of transparency in the search process, and the lack of superintendent experience in the resume of the very young preferred candidate – obviously a “rising star” but without time-tested evidence of impact on student learning. Before public meetings were held to unveil finalists and get input for the final decision, the leading candidate bowed out, citing “not a good fit.”
There are many examples available of ways not to hire a new superintendent, but in the above case the board came up with several bad choices. When should a search be considered successful?
Scenario: In the last ten years the district had drifted, with four superintendents and stagnant test score results. After a national search, the board hired Terry, who hit the ground running, immediately launching a comprehensive strategic planning process with student learning at its center. She reached out to administrators, families, employee unions, business and community leaders, and special education interest groups, generating tremendous enthusiasm in this new initiative, “A Vision for the Future.” Intense teacher professional development to improve instruction and scrutiny of the instructional leader role focused attention on what was happening in the classroom. After two years, the new strategic plan had thoroughly penetrated all corners of the central office, and was beginning to be reflected in school-level learning conversations that began to change practice. In the third year a slight but noticeable improvement in test scores was seen as a sign that things had begun to improve. In the middle of the third year the superintendent announced that she was leaving for a higher paying job in a larger district in another state. “Here we go again!” grumbled board member George to his colleagues.
Once a search identifies a candidate who is in the board’s opinion best qualified to lead the district in the direction desired by the community, the effective board moves from search phase to hiring phase to contracting phase and plans the orientation and onboarding phase as well.
The effective board involves the community and staff in its superintendent search process, especially the work of identifying district needs and values. It updates the job description and aligns it with the search process, the contract, and policy, including the evaluation process. It selects a candidate who fits district needs, the board’s vision for the future, and community values. The search firm, if used, identifies candidates who meet board-approved criteria and thoroughly vets candidates’ backgrounds. The board discusses role expectations among board members prior to the search, and with candidates at the interview phase. It conducts similar discussions about the evaluation process, aligning it with expectations for the new superintendent. Superintendent ‘fit’ is with the community and the school system, not just the board.
NOTE: Please feel free to comment. The opinions expressed in these blog entries are informed by references cited herein, and the experiences of the author. Your comments are welcome additions to the conversation.
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Excerpt from:
- A Framework for School Governance (2017), Rick Maloney
Additional References:
- 1“Elected Versus Appointed Boards”, Thomas Glass, in The Future of School Board Governance (2008) ed. Thomas Alsbury
- 2Prisoners of the Paradigm (2000) Alan Hafer
- 3Spinning Wheels: The Politics of Urban School Reform (1999) Frederick Hess
Next: Question #35 Does Your Board Provide Guidance for Management?
Most Boards adhere to the schmoozer self-adulation philosophy of hiring new superintendents. So there is little hope of finding an authentic instructionally focused superintendent. Most superintendents could not teach their way out of a paper bag. Their forte is schmoozing the Board, staff, and community. Truth be told.
Whoever you hire, do not let the superintendent engage in a goofy 100 day listening tour to find out what the community and parents want. This exercise in schmooze invented by the Broad Foundation is a total worthless initiative. Community and parents expect the superintendent to foster learning and academic growth i. The schools. It shouldn’t take a superintende t to waste 100 days of her tenure to figure out her job.
Above all make sure the superintendent is actually a master teacher and not some recycled business leaflder!
Bill, I understand your concerns about superintendent hiring. As for the 100-day listening tour, I (as a board member) do not object to such a listening tour for getting her bearing and more fully understanding management challenges, but the board would be negligent if it leaves its strategic governance thinking to the newly hired superintendent. If the board does not already have strategic guidance for the superintendent, it is negligent. Too many boards wait to hear from the superintendent, who feels compelled to initiate a strategic planning process that should be the board’s domain, already in existence.