Lane Mills, assistant superintendent for accountability and technology for Wilson County Schools, in North Carolina, describes the process of reviewing and updating technology policies in her home school district. While technology policies and procedures should be tailored to each district's needs and level of technology use, some basic policies…

In this article, the author compares leadership and resiliency with rock climbing. It describes the author's personal experience on a rock climbing adventure with his family and how it required application of similar elements as that of leadership and resiliency. The article contains the following sections: (1) Being Resilient; (2) Points of…

Some think a good superintendent these days shares a lot in common with a superhero. Larry Hill is one superintendent who really does don a cape. It is a flowing black one, complemented by a sparkly white bow tie and red top hat. And better yet, he wears it on his job as the top administrator of the North Iowa Community Schools in Buffalo Center,…

Should a superintendent become involved in the recruitment of new school board members? Because of the importance of who serves on the school board and their individual and collective motives, does the superintendent leave the recruitment and selection of new board members to chance or does he or she become involved in recruiting? This is a…

Board meetings are the time and place where school boards act. In fact, only when coming together as a body in a legal meeting do school board members become a board. Effective board meetings are the first prerequisite for an effective board. Furthermore, what parents and voters see at board meetings determines largely what they think about their…

In this article, the author poses the question "Are weapons searches in the job descriptions of instructional leaders?" which brings to attention changing duties of school principals that were not faced by previous generations. The article reports observations made during time spent with a current high school principal.

The closely watched search for a new superintendent in Boston has taken such a rocky turn that the search committee's revised timeline now envisions January as the starting time for the new schools chief. The district's search committee had planned to select a group of finalists who would then go through public interviews before the school…

This article discusses Arkansas' new compensation package for its new education chief. One recent candidate for the state education director's job is said to have had discussions that included a salary of about $240,000, a substantial bonus for staying a certain number of years, and possibly even a professor's chair at a state university upon…

A suburban Detroit consortium of superintendents created a leadership academy for teachers to learn the value of their own knowledge and improve their skills. The Galileo Leadership project challenges established beliefs and helps teachers engage collaboratively in the work of active leadership. From mini-retreats to active research, teachers…

Education Matters" is the monthly newsletter of the Association of American Educators (AAE), an organization dedicated to advancing the American teaching profession through personal growth, professional development, teacher advocacy and protection. This issue of the newsletter includes: (1) Fixing D.C.'s Schools: How a 38-Year-Old Rookie…

This fourth volume of "The Soul of Educational Leadership" series offers key strategies for identifying the moral and ethical dimensions of school leadership practice. With thought-provoking contributions from top leadership figures like Terrence E. Deal, Dawna Markova, and Scott Thompson, this enlightening resource combines research with…

The American Association of School Administrators (AASA) invited the 2007 state winners to gather in Denver, Colorado, for three days of intensive dialogue about the challenges facing today's superintendents. As a result of the panels and small group discussions that followed, superintendents identified and detailed in this paper five avenues for…

This article presents and analyzes the findings of two recent studies related to female school superintendents and their respective experiences with the "professional victim syndrome" and the consequences of their career decisions. Those findings are synthesized with research and literature related to leadership skills and dispositions…

The problem. To consider reorganization of two or more Iowa school districts in light of declining enrollment, dwindling financial resources, the end of the state budget guarantee program and pressure to provide the most rigorous and relevant education possible to Iowa's students. Specifically, the problem is to determine what two or more school…

This study examined superintendents' or designees' perceptions in light of NCLB (2002) and to understand parental involvement through the lens of Epstein's Framework of Parent Involvement (1992, 1995, 2002). The central problem was that despite parental involvement legislation, implementation and effectiveness of policies, and programs varies…