Painting a Portrait

President's Corner

Will your school district’s next superintendent be a woman or a person of color?

Superintendent turnover during the pandemic presented an opportunity for school boards to hire more women and people of color to lead our nation’s school systems. However, data from the ILO Group’s Superintendent Research Project revealed that superintendent searches conducted from March 2020 to March 2022 reinforced the status quo, with men being selected more often.

While women comprise the vast majority of our schools’ workforce nationally (three-quarters of teachers are female), males overwhelmingly lead school districts. Although there is no definitive national data on superintendents, a survey released by AASA in March 2023 revealed only 26 percent of superintendents were women and only 9 percent were a race other than white.

These results, while incomplete, hardly reflect the enrollment of our nation’s schools, where 50.6 percent of students are girls and 52 percent are people of color, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Women Leading Ed, a national network for women in education leadership, published a playbook for women titled “The Time Is Now” to help transform the education leadership ladder. Specifically, the group recommends five strategies to ensure female leaders have a fair shot at becoming superintendent: creating and promoting intentional support systems to prepare women for leadership roles, rebalancing the hiring process, providing family and well-being support, setting public goals for female leadership and increasing transparency, and ensuring financial fairness.

As the first Latina BOCES superintendent in New York state and only the second woman to lead my school system, I understand the challenges of breaking the glass ceiling. Women face greater obstacles, and we feel immense pressure to do well. If I fail, I believe it will be many years before another female, let alone a Puerto Rican woman, has the same opportunity in my school system or within my region. This is why I use my position to mentor others.

I have benefitted from the advocacy of others and aspire to pay those benefits forward. More than 20 years ago, the district superintendent at Questar III tapped me and two others to join the leadership team. This action created three future leaders at Questar III: two superintendents, one of whom was born in Puerto Rico, and a deputy superintendent who was born in Cyprus.

It is important to diversify the candidate pool and ensure we do not pass over talented individuals based on stereotypes or dated practices. During the pandemic, I coordinated eight searches for local boards that led to hiring five women (including two diverse candidates) and a man born outside the U.S. as superintendents.

With the increased attention and scrutiny on our systems, we must find more leaders who represent the diversity of our communities. School boards, search consultants, administrators and others must work together to close the gender and diversity gaps in leadership. Women cannot do it alone. This is why “Leading in a New Era: New Challenges, New Approaches” is the theme of my presidency.

So will your school system be led by a female or person of color in the future? This is a question school communities need to tackle with the help of search consultants working to diversify the candidate pool. Once women and people of color are hired as superintendents, we must provide strong mentoring and onboarding to ensure success for these new school leaders.

Diversifying the superintendency is just one challenge that requires us to consider new approaches. I look forward to working with AASA staff and others to prepare, energize and sustain the next generation of superintendents — those who will lead our country’s school districts and this association in the years ahead.

Gladys Cruz is AASA president in 2023-24.