The Proliferation of Superintendent Prep

The Array of Non-University Training for Superintendents

For educators training for high-level school system jobs, the choice between university-housed preparatory programs and professional cohorts run by other organizations, including professional associations, is not an either-or proposition.

Training activities targeting aspiring and early-career superintendents have proliferated in recent years with professional education associations, non-profits and proprietary companies joining the ranks of research universities as service providers. The alternatives include the Chiefs for Change, Yale University’s Broad Center, Leading Now, Council of the Great City Schools, the proprietary DA Leadership Institute and a newly launched program at Harvard, Leading During Turbulent Times: Civic Leadership in the Superintendency, highlighting diplomatic and political skills for school leaders.

Others, such as the Holdsworth Center in Austin, Texas, which aims to develop a pipeline of education leaders, operate within a state.

Sundry Options

Kristine Gilmore, associate executive director overseeing the AASA Leadership Network’s array of year-long academies and cohorts, believes the relationship among the various organizations is mostly “complementary, not competitive. It’s such a big lift. It’s not either/or. This is really about the and.”

As a widely respected superintendent of 19 years in Wisconsin whose tenure included the COVID-19 pandemic, Gilmore knows firsthand the responsibilities and stresses of the top job and what it takes today to succeed in that role. “As a member-driven organization, AASA frequently asks, ‘What do you need now?’ It’s about solution-driven practices that will help them be successful today and tomorrow,” she says.

AASA works in partnership with members to determine professional development programming. The association’s Urban Superintendents Academy is a joint endeavor with Howard University and the University of Southern California where a cohort of current or aspiring superintendents learn about solutions in different contexts and reflect on the real-life challenges of the job in urban communities. Candid discussions help them develop who they are as a leader, often inspired by guest superintendents who share their philosophy, personal experience and practical advice on school board relations, equity, political influences and student achievement.

A Faster Response

The rapidly evolving role of the superintendency challenges traditional training programs to keep up, according to Stacey Edmonson, executive director of the International Council of Professors of Educational Leadership and dean of education at Sam Houston University in Huntsville, Texas.

She concedes it’s not easy to make substantive changes to a longstanding doctoral program tied to fixed budgets, facilities and curriculum to align closely with the new role of the superintendent. “Higher ed moves at the speed of snails,” Edmonson says, while stressing that university-based programs fill a different niche than professional organizations.

Professional associations and other training groups have the benefit of not only responding to the field’s needs more rapidly than higher education, but they also can tap their professional networks of active and retired school leaders to provide mentoring and coaching.

Fighting Isolation

Chiefs for Change, which started in 2010 as an initiative of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, shares some of the services that AASA provides, in its 18-month Future Chiefs cohort program. “We are able to put the learning experience on the fly to address more immediate issues,” says Robert Runcie, chief executive officer.

The Future Chiefs program stresses collaborative learning experiences and shadowing opportunities to develop the necessary skills and tools for impactful leadership in large districts or state education systems.

A principal benefit of this approach, Runcie says, is combating the isolation of the superintendency by providing a “trusted, confidential space for feedback and support,” given how the job “is a daily exercise in crisis management. … Most of our members are dealing with declining enrollment — closing schools, consolidating schools, repurposing schools. Most of our new chiefs have never been through that.”

Seasoned superintendents can offer advice to newbies on how to negotiate these stressful events, particularly as the political winds blow fiercely. “Framing it as an equity and access issue becomes less of an issue for a board. If the community can see the strategy, it changes the whole discussion,” he adds.

As Jennifer Cheatham, who directs the new civic leadership program at Harvard, says, “What I am seeing is a greater emphasis on the political acumen needed to perform these roles well, while considering implications for leadership teams and school boards. The associations also offer an opportunity for groups of superintendents to stay connected in much-needed communities of practice, which is what superintendents often say they need most.”

—    Merri Rosenberg