The Ultimate Stress - school superintendents

School Administrator, Sept, 2001 by Ruth E. Sternberg

Five superintendents' stories of coping with the most severe sets of circumstances

Few superintendents define their jobs as pure pleasure or pure pain.

Many say they like the creative tension--the energy ignited when community and government demands collide.

"I just thrive on it," says Harold Dodge, superintendent of the Mobile, Ala., schools. He recently faced severe budget problems that divided the community and forced him to literally go door to door garnering support for a tax issue.

"I think I do have a high stress tolerance," says Lane Plugge, superintendent of the Iowa City Community School District, who lost his superintendency in the summer of 1999 in Grand Island, Neb., over school board politics. "I'd be less than honest if I didn't say some days I ask, 'Is there something else?' But you go back to why you entered the profession. I truly believe we're about serving children and our communities."

In Jefferson County, Cob., Jane Hammond returns to her office every morning--now 2 1/2 years after the tragic shootings that turned Columbine High School into a worldwide icon--determined to do a job she has learned to love and to push for positive change in young people's lives.

But that doesn't mean the school CEO doesn't need help now and then coping with intense pressure.

A Mounting Toll

Consultants who deal with stress management in the corporate setting say they are getting more calls than ever to run sessions giving school chiefs advice about getting through the tough times.

Those who stick around, says Larry Coble, an ex-superintendent who now consults in the field of leadership training, "have a passion for leading and they are able to muster up huge amounts of energy and just keep plowing through it year after year. They say, 'Give me that next challenge."'

Many, however, have a long way to go to be that self-confident and self-assured, according to Walter Gmelch, dean of the College of Education at Iowa State University and a former business executive. He conducted research over several years that examined how school administrators handle work-related stress. Superintendents often worry about their own well-being last, he adds.

He lists "physical and psychological effects, burnout, flat-out emotional exhaustion" among the manifestations he has seen. "And the other one is scary--depersonalization. You're so inundated with people you suffer 'encounter stress.' People become numbers. It's sad. It happens a lot in the service industry. To me, it's devastating," Gmelch says.

Some have chosen to move on. Andrena Ray, former superintendent in Sumter, S.C., retired to the college setting four years ago after discovering her school district's long-time business manager had stolen more than $3 million over more than a decade. Some in the coastal community where she had spent her entire 35-year career thought she was involved, and others simply couldn't believe the allegations, even though several employees were convicted following the investigation.

Ray was devastated by the implications and the lack of support and developed physical side effects. "I am still taking blood-pressure medicine," she says.

The pressure on superintendents is growing sharply, brought on by heightened accountability at the state level, among other factors. According to AASA's Study of the American School Superintendency 2000, stress levels perceived by superintendents show a disturbing but largely predictable trend (see graph, page 16).

Coble, who directs the Collegium for the Advancement of Schools at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, says he sees mirrored in his clients the stresses he endured for 14 years as a superintendent.

"You're consumed with the job. I was in Winston-Salem (Forsythe County, N.C., Schools) for five years and it was like an instant. You're so consumed, it becomes your whole life," he says.

Nancy Nestor-Baker, a long-time school board member in the suburban Columbus, Ohio, district of Westerville, has heard the same refrain over and over again. She recently completed a doctorate in education and is working on a book about the tacit knowledge gained by superintendents as they grow in their jobs.

"You're just going, going, going," she says. "One superintendent I talked to told me, 'If I can just hang on for five years. Within eight months of my interview, he was gone. He left the superintendency. It was killing him."

How do today's school superintendents cope with the most severe forms of stress--a mass shooting inside a school building, a highly public confrontation with Jesse Jackson, an unexpected ouster from the job? Five superintendents facing these and other harrowing circumstances agreed to share the stories of their survival.

Bouncing Back from Victim Status

Paula Butterfield has a lot to be thankful for. Her health, for one. Her dog, for another.

Part black labrador, part German shepherd, her canine friend who came to her in a moment of crisis has served as perhaps her wisest example.