Two Superintendents, One Home

School Administrator, March, 2000 by Priscilla Pardini

The Helmses, who live in the mountains of northern California, also deal with dueling decisions about weather-related school closings. "Her district is at the snowline and 2,000 feet higher than mine," says Don. "I seldom have to worry about snow, but I still wake up at five in the morning when her staff calls her."

As more women move up through the ranks and assume the superintendent's job, it's likely the number of superintendent couples will grow. "I expect it will get more prevalent," says Molly Helms, a superintendent for five years in California. "When you go to (superintendent) meetings and conferences you make lots of contacts and see many of the same people."

If the phenomenon indeed becomes more common, more and more superintendents will find themselves without the traditional "supportive spouse" -- generally a wife--that so many of their predecessors relied on to host school district events, contribute to bake sales or volunteer in the schools.

Says Pat McDonald, who has played both roles: "When you're a superintendent, too, your social obligations to his district are limited by your responsibilities to your own district. Now, if he needs cookies for the PTA bake sale, he's going to have to go out and buy them."

Priscilla Pardini is a free-lance education writer in Shorewood, Wis.

In Perfect Harmony, the Garcias Play a Symmetrical Hand

When Mary and George Garcia went looking for their first jobs as school superintendents some 12 years ago, they made a deal. As soon as one of them got a job, they would move together to that part of the country. Once there, the other would begin a local job hunt.

Just one problem. "We ended up getting offers on the same day, 400 miles apart," recalls Mary Garcia, superintendent of the Sunnyside, Ariz., Unified School District.

In spite of their informal agreement, the two ended up accepting both those jobs, thus beginning their careers as superintendents on the same day in 1987.

To apply perfect symmetry to their careers, the Garcias have announced they will both retire from their current positions on the same day this summer--June 29. George, superintendent of the Tucson Unified School District since 1991, plans to look for another full-time position, possibly in teaching at the university level, though he does not rule out another urban superintendency. Mary plans to do consulting and writing.

"It's been a lot of fun," says George of the years he and Mary have spent as a superintendent couple. "We both aspired to the same position and were able to make it happen."

Dual Investments

The two met when George, working for the Iowa Department of Education, visited a school in Davenport, Iowa, where Mary was an elementary school teacher. "I asked the principal to see the classroom of his best teacher, and he took me to Mary's," he says.

Married a few years later--a second marriage for each--the Garcias went on to complete doctoral degrees in educational administration. Along the way, they worked as school principals in Kansas City, Mo., and central-office administrators in Texas--he as a deputy superintendent in Brownsville and she as an assistant superintendent in Weslaco.