What School Board Training Doesn't Teach About Hiring Your Superintendent

• In Event: Research on the Superintendency SIG Roundtable Session

Abstract

A practitioner driven literature addresses school board service, emphasizing the relatively deferential roles board members should play vis a vis superintendents, who normally have greater expertise and information. Some writing addresses how school boards hire superintendents, but this literature is overly formal, leaving much out (A.R., 2020; Maeroff 2010). This paper will begin to fill the void through a first-person account from a former board member of seemingly successful efforts hiring a competent, experienced school superintendent to run a 9,700-student school system, followed in just two years by terminating the same superintendent. I will explore the formal hiring process, detailing how this process limits both public and board access to information. I will conclude with suggestions for research, and reforms.

Author

• Robert A. Maranto, University of Arkansas