Mid-Career Learning - ways in which superintendents pursue professional development

School Administrator, Nov, 2001 by Jay Mathews

Finally, many superintendents who yearn for the daily flow of new thinking they encountered as students find they can plug into it by becoming, at least in the evenings, teachers of courses in administration and educational policy. Jerry Colonna, the superintendent in Redmond, Ore., runs a three-hour class at Lewis and Clark College on Monday nights for students seeking their administrative credentials. "The very fact that I am teaching helps me stay current with the literature," he says.

Jack Linehan, the superintendent in Shorewood, Wis., says he benefits from teaching a graduate course in school politics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "I learn from my course prep and from my students," he says.

Rudnicki, the superintendent in Sunnyvale, finds a way to teach in spite of the time crunch. "It forces me," he says, "to stay current through study but also through listening" to the problems his students discuss from their own school sites. Brown, with some administrator colleagues, has organized and conducted professional development sessions on leadership and how to have effective school board meetings. "Each time I work with them I learn something new," he says.

Gary Buehler, who retired in June as superintendent in Oswego, N.Y., teaches at the Union Institute, a Cincinnati-based distance learning outfit, and at the State University of New York at Oswego, where he is particularly active as part of the faculty of the Cycles of Success program. This refresher for first-year superintendents consists of monthly meetings that cover the vast scope of administrative responsibilities: working with the school board, administrative structure, communication, politics, academic accountability, budgets, law, superintendent contracts, transportation, food service and everything else you could think of.

"This stuff keeps me young, fresh, up-to-date and fully charged," Buehler says.

Growth Stimulation

Perhaps one of the most novel strategies for staying current is that employed by Edgar Hatrick, superintendent of the Loudoun County, Va., schools near Washington, D.C. Nothing beats the stimulation of managing one of the five fastest-growing school districts in the country. Like it or not, he says, "I have had to deal with all of the challenges associated with rapid growth from a huge building-and-remodeling program to changing curriculum to the changing demographics of our students and patron base," he says.

Much of his information, Hatrick adds, comes from AASA publications and conferences, particularly the annual Suburban Superintendents Conference. But so much new stuff is coming at him so fast at the office that he just has to keep his eyes open. "My approach is to look for good ideas wherever they may exist, without regard to the status of the superintendent or school system I am exploring," he says.

All those sources of information and stimulation are helpful and some administrators have found ways to employ most of them. Bill Dean, superintendent in Frederick County, Va., teaches a graduate-level course in school administration. He reads several professional books and selects a good book as a theme for the year in the administrative meetings he conducts. He attends national, state and regional professional meetings and training sessions. And, he says, he hires "very bright and very capable people who will challenge and push" those around them, including the superintendent.