Author Guidelines

To increase the chances your manuscript will be among those receiving preliminary acceptance, start by familiarizing yourself with the magazine. 

Articles are selected on the basis of their relevancy to our readers, quality of information, originality, readability, timeliness and freshness of viewpoint.

Articles that appear in School Administrator:

• Provide informative coverage of school system practices, policies and programs that have widespread appeal.
• Typically emphasize actual experiences rather than theory or proposed plans.
• May be written in the first person and should include insightful reflections that might help school district leaders.
• Are written in a journalistic style rather than academic format.
  • This includes short paragraphs of three to four sentences in length and clear, concise, jargon-free language.
• Often provide new, cutting-edge information and suggested readings, websites and additional resources on your subject.
• Do NOT describe the merits of proprietary services or products.
  • We do not publish a new products section. For more information on the advertorial process, contact magazine staff.

In addition, successful manuscripts must be free of factual errors, misspelled words and poor grammar.

Be sure to proofread before submission and follow our tips for editing your manuscript.

  Features:

Often the lead article is an in-depth examination of a topic relating to that month’s editorial theme with several articles that follow clustered under the same thematic umbrella. Generally 1,500-2,300 words.

  Focus:

Covers, succinctly, the practical measures involved in addressing a typical school district need, based on the actual experiences of school administrators and school systems. Generally 750-850 words.

  My View:

Provocative points of view — similar to op-ed pieces in a newspaper — on timely issues relevant to local school leaders. We also welcome humorous commentaries. Generally 650-850 words.

  Legal Brief:

Practical counsel on a legal matter with a direct connection to a superintendent. Generally 650-700 words.

  Board-Savvy Superintendent:

Provides strategies for how superintendents can work effectively with governing boards as a corporate entity as well as with individual board members. Generally 650-700 words.

  Tech Leadership:

Provides practical considerations for ensuring the most effective and efficient use of technology by the school leader and/or district. Generally 650-750 words.

  Social Media:

Provides practical considerations for ensuring the most effective and efficient use of social media by the school leader and/or district. Generally 650-750 words.

Ensure that you:

• Double-space your manuscript and leave margins of at least one inch.
• Number all pages.
• Limit the number of tables, graphs and charts. We do not routinely use them.
• Include your name, address, phone number, e-mail address, current professional position, proposed title of the article and whether it has been submitted simultaneously to other publications.

View All Tips for Editing Your Manuscript

To submit your manuscript, send it as a Word document file attachment to magazine@aasa.org with the subject line School Administrator Manuscript Submission.

Please be sure to include:

• Your name, affiliation and contact phone number
• The manuscript category for which you're submitting 

You will be notified of the states of your submission about eight weeks after submission.

If accepted, the editor’s notification letter typically will spell out the initial changes that will be required in the article and the author will be given a time frame for making these revisions.

When an article is scheduled for a particular issue, the editors will do a final edit. This version will be returned to the author for review and revisions using the track changes feature of Microsoft Word.

Your acceptance letter also will include a publication agreement.

• By signing, the author provides School Administrator with first North American serial rights and nonexclusive reprint rights, plus nonexclusive electronic rights.
• Authors must be sure to tell us whether the submitted article, or any part of the article, has been published elsewhere or is under consideration by other publications.
• Authors are responsible for crediting others whose work they are quoting.
• The agreement also indicates that you do not plan to submit the same article elsewhere before its publication in AASA's magazine and provides copyright transfer.

  Best of the Blogs:

Inform us of an exceptional superintendent blog. Excerpts from AASA member blogs will be included in the magazine’s print edition.

  Ethical Educator:

Submit an ethical dilemma about a situation in K-12 education for our panel of four experts to analyze and offer their advice.

  Leadership Lite:

Short humorous anecdotes, quips, quotations and malapropisms relating to school district administration and school board governance.

  Letters to the Editor:

Comments on an article, series of articles or points of view published in our magazine. We reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, style and space.

  People Watch:

Alert us of an AASA member who is assuming a new title, retiring, receiving a significant honor or who has passed away.

  Profile:

We welcome reader nominations of education leaders who are distinctive in their style of management, their career path or their contribution to the field. Candidates must be AASA members. If selected, a piece will be written by School Administrator staff members.

  Sidelight:

We welcome reader nominations of AASA members who have a unique hobby or avocation. If selected, a brief description will be written by School Administrator staff members.

Submissions and nominations for the categories above can be sent to magazine@aasa.org.