Domestic Relationships of the Superintendency

School Administrator, Feb, 1997 by Krista Ramsey

Other experts believe women are less place-bound or limited by family issues than Hensley's research indicates.

"Women aren't as concerned with their family situations as they used to be," says Jake Abbott, a consultant who recruits superintendents for California school districts. "I'm seeing more situations in which the husband is willing to relocate.

"And more female candidates are starting to really move out," he says. "For years, you'd find women in smaller districts and in the same geographic areas where they'd started their careers. Now they want the larger districts and they're willing to relocate to get them."

Hensley defends the research as an open, if limited, opportunity for female administrators to share concerns. Family issues are a common topic, she says.

No one prepares females for the effects the superintendency will have on their personal lives, she says. She points to herself as an example.

When her husband, Gordon Hensley, a professor, retired from his career in Pennsylvania so she could take her first superintendency in New York, she thought the transition had gone fine. Then her graduate school professor asked Gordon to speak on life as the superintendent's spouse.

"Gordon said, 'I live in a fish bowl. I'm no longer Dr. Hensley. I'm the husband of the superintendent. I don't have any identity. I'm alone most of the time,"' Phyllis Hensley remembers.

She felt angst over what the move had done to her marriage and realized it had torn apart her own support network as well. She recognized the couple's timing--her taking the most pressured, time-consuming position in her career just as he retired--was ill-considered. And she wondered why no one had pointed out such relatively predictable pitfalls.

She knew her thesis topic struck a cord with other women when "I'd sit down and talk with these superintendents and three hours later, they'd still be talking," she says.

Gender Distinctions

Across the country, female superintendents are eager to talk about the dynamics of spouses, families, and the demands of the superintendency.

"These aren't side issues," says Cheryl Ernst, superintendent of Carlsbad Unified School District, 35 miles north of San Diego. "To be successful as a superintendent, you have to have a balanced life and a healthy relationship with your family and spouse.

"And there is a difference in how it affects men and women," she says. "Women have higher self-expectations. They don't give up their concerns over being a wife and mother. They just add to them, and now they have to jump a little higher. Men don't agonize over it as much, and they aren't expected to."

Many female superintendents say they were considerably affected by the impact their career step had on their spouses and families.

Charlotte Sawyer's career climb meant considerable changes for her husband. To move with his wife, he left one principalship for a challenging role as principal of an alternative high school and put his own dreams of the superintendency on hold.

Like the couples in Hensley's study, the Sawyers weren't prepared for the intense time demands and public scrutiny.