His Specialty Is Short-Term Stints

School Administrator, May, 1994

Albert J. Pultz

Since August 1989, five school districts in upstate New York have called Al Pultz their superintendent. That's five superintendencies in five years. Does this man have a problem holding a job?

To the contrary, Pultz is a widely sought professional in school leadership. His calling card is interim school district superintendencies--employment that by definition rarely lasts more than six months.

The interim superintendency is a fast-growing form of post-retirement employment for veteran school leaders in states like New York, and Pultz is collecting interim posts like a youngster pocketing marbles.

Since January his paychecks have come from the Seneca Falls Central School District, a community of 1,500 students in the Finger Lakes region. Previously, he held short-term superintendencies in nearby Auburn, North Syracuse, Catskill, and Coxsackie-Athens, employment that lasted from five to 15 months.

Pultz, who served for 18 years as the permanent superintendent in the Skaneateles and Guilderland districts, says he finds the interim positions appealing because he can apply "a lot of things I've learned about school management" in different settings. He says he especially enjoys showing some different decision-making approaches to school boards that have been entrenched in old habits.

He's had plenty of opportunity to do that in New York, where the Board of Regents' New Compact for Learning is bringing fundamental change to the state-local relationship and to site-based management. Pultz says he practiced participative management long before it became fashionable or mandated.

Since starting his second career, Pultz has discovered that not all school boards share his view of a collaborative board-superintendent working arrangement. "I've had opportunities to see administrators and boards operating very differently from those I'm accustomed to," says Pultz, offering a gentlemanly assessment of recent experiences.

His stints in Auburn and North Syracuse placed him in school districts with recent histories of fractious board politics. In those situations, Pultz says, "I've tried to get them to realize the board should be helping the superintendent to be successful."

In another of his interim assignments, he had to contend with fire safety code violations so serious he was forced to close two turn-of-the-century school buildings during his first week on the job and move students into portable classrooms and other facilities. Pultz made a videotape of the dangerous conditions and showed it to community groups in hopes of igniting public support for long-overdue facility work--a maneuver that a newly hired permanent superintendent would not likely risk.

Frank Ambrosie, a BOCES superintendent who has known Pultz for 20 years, says his colleague has all the right skills to step into leadership vacancies on short notice. "If you look at a profile of characteristics of a good superintendent, Al has those. He communicates well, he's bright, he gets along well with people, he's knowledgeable about content, he has wonderful experience."

Ambrosie, whose position allows him to recommend interim candidates to local boards (who make the hiring decision), says the best evaluation criteria is this: "He's continually asked to fill these jobs."

Pultz started his second career, oddly enough, just a day after retiring from the Guilderland superintendency in 1989. He accepted a request from a BOCES superintendent in rural Greene County to fill the top spot in a 1,500-student district for five months.

At that job's conclusion, he left the education profession for 15 months to work as an administrator for blood services for the American Red Cross in Syracuse, N.Y. It was the first time in 34 years that he had worked outside of schools, and he missed the excitement.

During his interim superintendencies, Pultz concedes that some educators view him as a lame duck. But he says he's found it reassuring that even in districts with decaying buildings, tax revolts, obstreperous board members and, in one scary instance, a neo-Nazi hate march, he has found dedicated and tenacious teachers and administrators.

Pultz, who recently turned 65, will finish his stint in Seneca Falls this summer. He hopes to maintain his role as a utility manager "as long as I feel good about it and as long as my reputation allows me to continue."

Pultz says he's unlikely to accept an offer from a district that's too far from his home on picturesque Skaneateles Lake. And he has one other proviso to those seeking his services. "If a board simply wants someone to come in and sit on things, I wouldn't be interested."