Spouses working as superintendents confront agonizing logistics while establishing ground rules for dinner talk. Couples sharing the same career risk eclipsing their personal lives with professional issues. Having one's personal support network under the same roof can be mutually beneficial and synergistic. A married superintendents roster is…

Interviewed successful women school superintendents in Texas, regarding the attitudes and beliefs that helped shape their success in a male-dominated field. Respondents were deeply committed to their work, very spiritual, dependent upon a trustworthy person, and cognizant of leadership styles and power.Most were silent about (or denied) their own…

The suit. The paper-pusher. The gatekeeper. Few people go into administrative work to become one of these, nonetheless many end up living up to these management stereotypes. Sometimes this is the result of a deliberate effort to maintain a sense of control and prestige. More often than not it appears to be the belief that it is better to play it…

Les Daniels is beginning his ninth year as the superintendent of the 3,360-student Greenwood Public Schools in the Mississippi Delta, one of the nation's poorest non-urban regions. He spent the previous seven years as superintendent in McComb, Mississippi, where he started teaching in 1965. He is the first black to head either school system.…

Could a North Dakota farm boy with a smallish frame, bookish appearance, understated speaking voice and aw-shucks humility possibly be a good fit to lead a powerhouse, cosmopolitan private school for American students living abroad, whose governing board consists mainly of high-flying corporate executives and well-heeled attorneys? The answer…

Louisiana state schools Superintendent Cecil J. Picard is working to rebuild the New Orleans school system while battling Lou Gehrig's disease. Cecil J. Picard walks confidently and purposefully to his seat, using a cane to support his weakening right leg. The widow's peak and his graying hair are signs that he's lived 68 years, and the cane…

Rural districts usually have a tough time attracting new teachers; but one in North Carolina is defying the odds. Teacher recruitment and retention is the number one challenge of John Parker, Roanoke Rapids Graded School District superintendent. Until recently, Roanoke Rapids had a 13 percent faculty turnover rate--not unusual among rural schools.…

The concept of sanctuary developed by psychiatrist Sandra Bloom is applied to building safe school cultures. In April 1999, when a group of superintendents in southern New Jersey first assembled to discuss the ramifications of Columbine, the authors had no vision of safe schools, little understanding of the complexities of change, and certainly no…

The authors of this article were recently privileged to spend five days with a group of 10 talented principals who have been charged with turning around academically low-performing schools in their respective districts. These principals were selected as participants in a Turnaround Specialist Program initiated by Gov. Mark R. Warner of Virginia…

No graduate program can adequately prepare a novice superintendent for the myriad situations she or he likely will face during the first few years. In addition to learning the job, today's superintendent faces challenges unlike those of prior generations. Perhaps the most difficult one is gaining an understanding of how to work effectively with…

Explores potential links between school board member and superintendent turnover. Qualitative and quantitative data from 176 school districts in a Northwest state support use of Dissatisfaction Theory as a useful tool in describing the political sequence of events in local school governance and establish the necessity of distinguishing between…

This article discusses how chief executive officer Bonnie Copeland handles the troubled system of Baltimore city schools. The day after Copeland was hired, she announced the most radical restructuring in the system's history, including the firing of up to 1,000 of the district's 12,000 employees, to address a $58 million deficit in its $914…

Nancy R. Noeske, a former Milwaukee science teacher, has done 18 superintendent searches and built a reputation as an aggressive, effective recruiter of both women and candidates of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds. Three years ago, she struck out on her own, founding proact Search to specialize in finding big-city superintendents. In this…

"Alabama Education News" is published monthly except for June, July, and December by the Alabama Department of Education. This publication, authorized by Section 16-2-4 of the "Code of Alabama," as recompiled in 1975, is a public service of the Alabama Department of Education designed to inform citizens and educators about…

"Spotlight on New Hampshire" is the fourth installment of the Afterschool Alliance's "New England After 3 PM" series, and the first to focus exclusively on afterschool in New Hampshire. "Spotlight on New Hampshire" finds an overwhelming majority of New Hampshire's education leaders say that afterschool programs…