scholarly journals Practices that constitute successful school superintendent leadership : perceptions from established rural school superintendents

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Brian Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Rural School ◽  
School Superintendents ◽  
Superintendent Leadership ◽  
Leadership Perceptions ◽  
School Superintendent ◽  
Successful School

scholarly journals School Bond Success

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carleton R. Holt ◽  
Matthew A. Wendt ◽  
Roland M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
School District ◽  
Rapid Assessment ◽  
Community Support ◽  
Rural School ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Bond Elections ◽  
Rural School District ◽  
Bond Issues ◽  
School Bond ◽  
Successful School

Following two-failed school bond issues in 1995 and 1998, one mid-sized rural school district organized an effort that led to two successful school bond elections in 2001 and 2003. The school district’s strategic plan mirrored many of the recommendations for successful bond referendums published in School Bond Success: A Strategy for Building America’s Schools. Findings from this case study, utilizing a Rapid Assessment Process, illustrate many of the reasons why the school district passed two consecutive bond issues with unprecedented community support. Although the findings from this school district may not match the concerns of all communities, it provides readers with a perspective of voters’ beliefs in one rural school district.  

Dollars and sense: a budget-building framework of transparency for superintendent leadership

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 156-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
James J. Bird
Keyword(s):  
Curriculum Development ◽  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
Educational Needs ◽  
Capital Outlay ◽  
Leadership Position ◽  
Resource Allocations ◽  
School Superintendents ◽  
Superintendent Leadership ◽  
Programme Improvement

School superintendents annually need to gain affirmative votes from their governing bodies to approve their district budgets. This paper proposes a framework through which the superintendent can express the district’s educational needs and concomitant resource allocations in conceptual terms rather than in multi-columned ledgers. The framework calls for transparency, the involvement of all stakeholders and simplicity. It posits the superintendent in the vital leadership position of being the catalyst for orchestrating change for continuous improvement across the district. Components of the framework include repositories for concepts including: staffing, programme improvement, curriculum development and capital outlay.

scholarly journals Rural Superintendents’ Responses to COVID-19: Navigating Local Control During a Public Health Crisis

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad R. Lochmiller
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
School Board ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rural School ◽  
Crisis Leadership ◽  
Board Members ◽  
School Superintendents ◽  
School Board Members ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The Individual

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a variety of responses by organizational leaders throughout the United States and internationally. This paper explores the responses of five rural school superintendents who work in a conservative Midwestern state. Using an exploratory qualitative research design, the study analyzes interviews and documents collected remotely to adhere to current public health guidelines. The study adopted a crisis leadership perspective to explore how rural school superintendents were responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and managing the politics associated with it. Findings suggest that superintendents were acutely aware of their community’s current political stance toward the COVID-19 pandemic and were especially responsive to the individual political philosophies of their elected school board members. The superintendents did not uniformly adopt crisis leadership behaviors to respond to the circumstances created by the pandemic. Rather, superintendents responded in ways that managed the political perspectives held by their elected board members and sought to reconcile differences in the board members’ political perspectives that precluded action. As part of this reconciliation, the superintendents leveraged public health information to shape and at times change elected school board members’ perspectives. This information helped the superintendents overcome political perspectives that led some of the most conservative board members to resist widely accepted public health guidance. Implications for the field of educational leadership, research on rural superintendents, and potential revisions to superintendent preparation are discussed.

scholarly journals Attracting Principals to the Superintendency

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Aimee Howley ◽  
Edwina Pendarvis ◽  
Thomas Gibbs
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Experience ◽  
School Superintendents ◽  
Federal Mandates ◽  
Excessive Pressure ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
School Superintendent ◽  
Years Of Teaching Experience ◽  
Making A Difference ◽  
Extrinsic Motivators ◽  
External Mandates

Responding to a perceived shortage of school superintendents in Ohio as well as elsewhere in the nation, this study examined the conditions of the job that make it attractive or unattractive as a career move for principals. The researchers surveyed a random sample of Ohio principals, receiving usable responses from 508 of these administrators. Analysis of the data revealed that principals perceived the ability to make a difference and the extrinsic motivators (e.g., salary and benefits) associated with the superintendency as conditions salient to the decision to pursue such a job. Furthermore, they viewed the difficulties associated with the superintendency as extremely important. Among these difficulties, the most troubling were: (1) increased burden of responsibility for local, state, and federal mandates; (2) need to be accountable for outcomes that are beyond an educator’s control; (3) low levels of board support, and (4) excessive pressure to perform. The researchers also explored the personal and contextual characteristics that predisposed principals to see certain conditions of the superintendency as particularly attractive or particularly troublesome. Only two such characteristics, however, proved to be predictive: (1) principals with fewer years of teaching experience were more likely than their more experienced counterparts to rate the difficulty of the job as important to the decision to pursue a position as superintendent, and (2) principals who held cosmopolitan commitments were more likely than those who did not hold such commitments to view the salary and benefits associated with the superintendency as important. Findings from the study provided some guidance to those policy makers who are looking for ways to make the superintendency more attractive as a career move for principals. In particular, the study suggested that policy makers should work to design incentives that address school leaders’ interest in making a difference at the district level. At the same time, they should focus on efforts to reduce the burdens that external mandates contribute to the already burdensome job of school superintendent.

scholarly journals Turnaround Reform Efforts in a Rural Context: How Community and Culture Impart Change

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Mette
Keyword(s):  
School Districts ◽  
Rural School ◽  
Rural Setting ◽  
School Turnaround ◽  
Rural School Districts ◽  
District Administrators ◽  
Turnaround School ◽  
Rural Context ◽  
Successful School ◽  
Policy Perceptions

This article furthers research on the necessary components of what supports successful school turnaround, and also explores how and why two rural schools taking part in a Midwest State Turnaround School Project were successful in implementing school turnaround policy. Perceptions of building principals, district administrators, and regional support staff implementing turnaround policy were considered. Data were collected from 13 participants and analyses focused on the culture created and leadership provided by two rural school districts during the State Turnaround Schools Project implementation. Previous research has detailed district communication, district support of the turnaround principal, and shared leadership as important factors. However this article explores how and why the two participating rural school districts were successful implementing school turnaround and identifies the cultural and community conditions that support school turnaround in a rural setting.  

scholarly journals Context-Responsive Leadership: Examining Superintendent Leadership in Context.

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul V. Bredeson ◽  
Hans W. Klar ◽  
Olof Johansson
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Practices ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Geographic Location ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Study ◽  
School Superintendents ◽  
Superintendent Leadership ◽  
Cross National Study ◽  
Depth Interviews

It is widely acknowledged that context matters, that it affects leadership practices. A large body of descriptive studies documents common elements in the work of school superintendents. What is less well known is how superintendents’ leadership may be expressed very differently given the varying contexts in which they work. The purpose of this cross-national study was to identify the specific variations in context which influence superintendents’ leadership, and to examine how superintendents respond to these variations in context. Structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 superintendents- six from across Sweden and six from Wisconsin, in the United States. The findings illustrate that the work of superintendents is paradoxically similar but different. Superintendents described common primary work priorities, challenges and contextual variations which influenced their practice. Yet, differences in district size, organizational culture, community characteristics, and geographic location significantly influenced their leadership practices. Despite their challenges, all superintendents responded to and shaped the context of their work. The study provides illustrative examples of superintendent leadership in situ, and supports the argument that leadership is both embedded in and influenced by context. The study also furthers the authors’ emerging theory of context-responsive leadership.

scholarly journals Why Rural Matters 2018-2019: The Time is Now: Interview with Authors Jerry Johnson, Daniel Showalter, and Sara Hartman

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin McHenry-Sorber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Rural Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rural School ◽  
The State ◽  
School Superintendents ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
College Board ◽  
The Status ◽  
Community Trust

TRE editor Erin McHenry-Sorber recently spoke with three of the authors of the biennial report on the status of rural education published by the Rural School and Community Trust in partnership with the College Board and AASA: The School Superintendents’ Organization. Why Rural Matters 2018-2019 The Time is Now examines the state of rural education in each of the 50 states in the United States.  The authors describe the significance of the report and its implications for policy and practice.

scholarly journals Balancing trust and control through dialogue meetings in Norwegian school district governance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Øyvind H. Henriksen ◽  
Jan Merok Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Research Study ◽  
School Reforms ◽  
Trust Building ◽  
School Superintendents ◽  
Superintendent Leadership ◽  
Team Leaders ◽  
And Control ◽  
District Governance ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractIncreased attention has been paid to school superintendents and their role in school reforms. Still, there are few studies on dialogue meetings between actors at different levels in the school hierarchy. The current paper investigates how a superintendent balances between trust and control while supporting school development through dialogue meetings. Drawing on interviews, reflection notes, and longitudinal observational data from dialogue meetings, comprising a superintendent, subordinated school leaders, and team leaders, this action research study provides insight into requirements for productive dialogue meetings. We argue that superintendent leadership through regular dialogue meetings can foster trust-building, empowerment, and professional commitment.

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