Uncommon Civility: A Superintendent's Suicide

School Administrator, Sept, 1997 by Roseanne Fogarty

On the first Saturday in March, Colleen Fennell, superintendent of the Wynantskill Union Free School District in upstate New York, met her death by suicide. She was 43.

As the lone administrator in the financially troubled, 400-student district, Fennell endured more than a year of insults and scorn from some members of her badly divided school board, who went out of their way to undercut her authority.

Just months after she had agreed to the board's demand to look elsewhere for a job, though three years remained on her contract, a majority faction filed 14 charges against Fennell, seeking her ouster. An independent arbitrator last December dismissed all but one charge and part of another, both of which he described as "trifling." The hearing officer's decision described the board president as "out of control." Yet the acrimony continued.

Fennell's final thoughts about the profession into which she had for years poured her energies only can be imagined. Her tragic death shook New York's education community, and it brought renewed attention to an issue already troubling many: the state of public civility and public service. The tragedy raised anxious questions among the aspiring administrators whom I teach about how to handle such traumas. These were questions for which I had no satisfactory answers.

Tolerating Abuse

Along with increasing numbers of retirements at the top levels of public school administration, we are seeing a shrinking supply of qualified administrator candidates, especially for superintendencies and high school principalships.

Note my emphasis on "qualified administrators." We can always find somebody to take a job. A greater challenge is to entice top-quality educators to pursue careers in which students curse and kick them, parents scream at and punch them, former colleagues snub them for "crossing the line" from teaching into administration, and board members publicly castigate them.

In my educational administration program, we teach "servant leadership." Children, we say, must always come first. Teachers, staff and parents are to be treated as valued partners. Board members, the people's representatives, are to be shown respect and forbearance.

Lead by example, we tell future administrators; always show compassion and tolerance; hold yourself to high standards. In a fight, always focus on the issue and never attack individuals.

But is anyone teaching the rest of the world to treat public school leaders with equal civility? No educator would condone harassing or threatening a child, a parent or a teacher. Yet we tell prospective administrators, "Develop a thick skin; learn to deal with stress; don't expect support; if you can't take the heat, stay out of school administration."

I recently spoke to a former student, now in a very responsible (and stressful) administrative position. After listening to her tough, bitter, streetwise comments, I said, "It sounds as if the iron has entered your soul!" "Oh, yes," she replied, wearily.

She's good at what she does. Perhaps she'll move on to something more rewarding.

Is this what communities want--to be forced to fill the principalships and superintendencies with bullies and bum-out cases because the good administrators have gotten fed up with a daily diet of incivility and have left?

Support Systems

"What can we do?" readers may ask. "We're not the offenders. We're the targets."

This is true, but we may be enabling the uncivil, the unbalanced and the destructive. When we accept and internalize the uncivilized, it grows, like the "dark" in a children's book that got fat eating shadows.

We can start with a personal code of respectful and self-respecting conduct, using past problems to guide us: "Whenever X happens, I will constructively confront;" "If Y happens, I will excuse myself and leave the room;" and "If Z happens, I will request help."

We can use our professional support systems to get support for ourselves and give support to colleagues (and not just the beginners). We can refuse to encourage among fellow administrators a cult of "success" and phony invulnerability. We can get training in group process, including how to establish ground rules for civil discourse. We can speak out for civility and tolerance, giving voice to the many who are less articulate but share those values.

We can seek balance in our lives so that a defeated school budget or an unrenewed contract is offset by activities that help us regain perspective and resilience. Work, however, noble, is not life. Many of us in education are more than a little obsessional about our jobs. However serious the needs of the communities we serve, we can serve them better and longer if we maintain personal fitness of body, mind and spirit. A little laughter, a little outdoor exercise and a little time with friends can do wonders in restoring energy and equilibrium.

Lasting Lessons

Often, though, the bottom line is that all our best efforts seem to go for naught. Failure and rejection are sometimes unavoidable. What matters then is how we carry ourselves in defeat and what we are able to learn from it.