The Challenging Job of a School Superintendent

What makes a successful school superintendent?  While there is no doubt varying opinions, there is some consensus on the basic characteristics of an effective school superintendent.  A survey of recognized top superintendents from around the country indicates that effective communication from the school’s leadership has a significant impact on the success of moving the district’s vision forward.  

The National School Public Relations Association (NPRA) survey shows the “need for good communications as an integral ingredient in superintendent success was cited by every superintendent in this study. Although leadership, vision, and strategic thinking were listed as the most important skills for superintendent success, every superintendent in the study ranked good communications skills as a “very important” component of each of those skills.”

The superintendents mentioned that communication is especially important during times of institutional changes such as implementing “No Child Left Behind and other accountability requirements; changes in curriculum; redrawing attendance boundaries; grade configuration changes; and closing schools.” 

An article on GreatSchools’ website states that successful superintendents have a clear vision, goals and objectives for the district, and work toward achieving those goals.  They noted that the best superintendents understand they are instructional leaders and strive to ensure their students are learning and achieving at the highest levels possible.  This means a superintendent must be “knowledgeable of the best practices for maximizing student achievement and is supportive of teachers in the district.”

Superintendents are managers, and as such, must effectively evaluate the performance of their district.  They are also responsible for seeing to it that school principals are equally effective leaders in their buildings.  Finally just as good communicator skills are a must, the best superintendents are good listeners.  

GSU’s College of Education offers an Interdisciplinary Leadership, Ed.D degree program with a Superintendent (P-12) as one of the concentrations.  The program’s other concentrations are Higher Education Administration, Public Safety, and Not-for-Profit/Social Entrepreneurship.  The doctoral program provides students a comprehensive set of core courses in leadership, research, planning, communication, globalism and finance.  Please refer to the College of Education’s website for the complete requirements and details of our Interdisciplinary Leadership ED.D. 

Sources:

http://www.nspra.org/files/docs/CharacteristicsOfEffectiveSuperintendents.pdf

http://www.greatschools.org/improvement/quality-teaching/94-what-makes-a-great-superintendent.gs

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