Being a superintendent and/or principal is incredibly hard. As a leader, you are tasked with many things. Unfortunately, not all are taught within advanced degree programs.

1. 8 Things They Don’t Teach in
Superintendent and Principal School
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2. The role of school principal or school district superintendent each carry with them the
need for unique skills and competencies, and colleges and universities that seek to
prepare people for these roles do the best job they can in anticipating the demands of
these leadership positions and crafting programs accordingly. Nothing in any graduate
program, however, can truly prepare anyone as effectively or comprehensively as
actual experience in the position. Anyone who has served as a principal or a
superintendent could easily develop a list of things they wish they had learned in
graduate school.
Though the two roles involve skills with considerable overlap, there nonetheless remain
several aspects of each job that are unique. This series will provide a list and some brief
commentary on four things for each position that would be good to know and that
may have been absent from typical graduate programs in educational leadership.
Considered first will be school leadership, further divided into the very different positions
of elementary and secondary principal.
1. Scheduling
While technology has certainly made the job of building a school schedule somewhat
easier, the task of creating a schedule each year is daunting to every new principal,
especially at the elementary level when little assistance is typically available other than
from more experienced colleagues willing to help. This responsibility at the middle and
high school levels is often shared with guidance personnel and vice-principals, and
larger schools with multiple sections of classes are easier to schedule than smaller ones
with more singleton courses that cannot conflict with other classes offered only once a
day.
Graduate programs in school leadership rarely provide practical training in schedule
building, simply because every district, and often schools within the same district, allow
certain priorities to trump others. The principal, ideally with measured input from
teachers themselves, should ultimately be the one who decides how to create a
schedule that takes the interests and needs of students into account as the top priority.
Doing so within contractual considerations of instructional staff is another constraint that
is unique to every district and, therefore, cannot be adequately addressed in graduate
programs of study.
New to scheduling in many districts is the connection between budget and program,
resulting in the need for software that tracks spending and ties dollars to program,
products, and personnel. Investing in such software is a cost-effective strategy for
managing costs and tying resources to student achievement in a meaningful and
tangible way.

3. 2. Budgeting
The process of building a budget and managing spending for an entire school year are
aspects of the principalship that take most new principals by surprise. Direction from the
business department is helpful during budget creation, and new principals are
particularly wise to ask many questions and lean on the advice of experienced
colleagues in the district. Managing a budget as a school year progresses is an entirely
different process, one that includes prioritization and negotiation skills that few
graduate programs provide for or include as part of the preparation of principals.
New principals quickly learn, sometimes the hard way, that spending early in a school
year is smarter than waiting. It is not at all uncommon for the business office in many
districts to institute a system of heightened scrutiny or enhanced justification of
spending in the spring of a school year, spending that would sail through a less rigorous
process at the beginning of a school year. Emergencies aside, if something that was
anticipated while crafting a budget wasn’t purchased by the spring of a given school
year, conventional wisdom often prevails and such late spending is typically forestalled.
Elementary principals often have a deeper connection to spending on instruction than
secondary colleagues, simply because the nature of a secondary school budget
includes extracurricular and interscholastic sports spending that is often and completely
absent at the primary and intermediate grade levels. High school principals who
maintain a detailed view of all spending, especially resources devoted to instruction,
are those most likely to succeed at raising academic achievement, especially if
software is in place and data is developed and considered that connects dollars to
student achievement.
The comprehensive role of superintendent requires a skill set that includes many things
anyone would expect of an educational leader. The ability to communicate well with
different constituencies and the ability to establish a vision for the future of a district are
two of the most basic responsibilities of anyone who serves in a central office leadership
position. Striking the proper balance between transparency and confidentiality in
decision-making, while less apparent to those who have never served in the position, is
no less important for those who succeed as a chief school administrator.
The career arc of anyone who becomes a superintendent typically includes time as a
teacher, where many of the communication skills required for success are developed.
Also common is time spent as a building-level administrator, where many of the
delegating and prioritizing skills necessary for central office success are similarly honed.
Regardless of whether time as a teacher or principal precedes the superintendency,
the feeling of being occasionally overwhelmed and consistently humbled by the job is
virtually universal among new superintendents.

4. Graduate school and an advanced degree or two are standard fare for most
superintendents before ascending to that position. Despite the best intentions of
virtually every program of study meant to prepare superintendents for their role, there is
no better preparation than time served. The mistakes made, lessons learned, and
improvement experienced as a superintendent is priceless and irreplaceable.
A brief examination of things not taught in graduate school can assist anyone who
needs to understand the responsibilities of a superintendent of schools or a school
principal. If scheduling and budgeting represent challenges for most new principals, the
two items examined herein certainly qualify as equal challenges for superintendents.
3. Establishing Partnerships
New superintendents are initially very popular, with a “honeymoon” phase that can last
for weeks, months, or longer. In the most respectful manner possible, taking stock of
what has transpired in the recent past and learning from everyone as to the perceived
strengths of a district and challenges faced and overcome is an especially wise way to
spend the first many months as a superintendent. Before setting out to change a
culture, learning about the culture that exists is the best way to exhibit the proper
respect for everyone who works in a district.
It is during the halcyon honeymoon days that a new superintendent can establish the
partnerships likely to ensure long-term success. Superintendents who are affable,
avuncular, and accessible from the minute they land in the chair are those who
succeed in improving the district they are honored to serve.
Partnerships with union leaders, local law enforcement, local political leaders, parent
groups, the education foundation, local media, and local businesses all pay dividends
for the district, and the degree to which the superintendent is front and center with
many or all of these groups as “the face of the school district” is typically a surprise for a
new superintendent. Embracing these opportunities to raise the district’s profile and
position it positively in the hearts and minds of the people in these groups and
organizations is a central responsibility of the superintendent of schools
4. Crisis Response
Few people who serve as a superintendent of schools ever escape the job of
responding to a crisis, whether an unexpected or untimely death, a natural disaster, or
a breach in school security. Most who begin their time as a superintendent give little if
any thought to this aspect of the job, but those who anticipate the need to
communicate during or after a crisis and have a plan in mind or in place for such
emergencies are better positioned to reassure people and establish order and comfort
in a time of potential chaos.

5. Experienced district leaders are careful to keep the board president fully apprised of all
events as an important initial step, sometimes before anyone else is informed or
occasionally once law enforcement has been contacted. If a particular emergency
requires an immediate response, and if that immediate response has been handled
professionally and successfully, communicating with key personnel is an important and
immediate next step.
Another aspect of crisis response that few new superintendents have ever handled
directly is confronting the media when they make initial contact. It is precisely this
situation that provides a compelling case for having a mutually respectful relationship
with local media figures before a crisis occurs. A polite rebuff and a brief explanation as
to the necessity of such a response is more easily delivered and more likely to suffice in
the initial stages of an emergency situation than a simple “no comment.”
School leadership can be both thrilling and lonely, and anticipating the things that
have vexed others in the role can help anyone overcome challenges and succeed for
their students and their schools.
School principals have the unique responsibility to ensure the smooth daily operations of
their schools while simultaneously holding everyone accountable for doing their best
work. The biblical phrase “all things to all people” first attributed to the Apostle Paul is
an apt descriptor of the role of a school principal, especially at the elementary level
where virtually everything lands in the lap or on the desk of the principal.
Running a school takes on a certain automaticity, and the logistical aspects of the job
can easily overshadow the more seminal responsibility of increasing academic
achievement. Especially in a smaller school with little or no administrative support from
a vice-principal or guidance personnel, being a school principal can be a very
challenging proposition, especially for those who embrace change over the status quo
and who take seriously their responsibility to drive innovation and improvement in the
daily delivery of instruction.
Adding to the challenges of serving as a school principal is managing the role of
parents in the operation of a school. Parental involvement has become a catch-phrase
for a wide variety of behaviors exhibited by parents, not all of them conducive to
running a school efficiently or effectively. Though it is awkward and politically foolhardy
to admit or acknowledge, this aspect of school leadership leads to two more things not
taught to those who aspire to the principalship.
5. Not All Parental Involvement is Good
Consider the practice of allowing parents to assist in the school library or in any other
school day program or activity. Even scheduled in advance and carefully monitored,

6. having parents present during the school day automatically makes them occasionally
or persistently privy to things that parents should not necessarily witness, most notably
the interactions between a student having a difficult time of things and the staff
member(s) who are trying to help the student and the situation. Rare is the school
principal who has not dealt with fallout from parents who hear an inaccurate version of
events from a volunteer about an incident in school.
The right to and expectation of privacy can be compromised when a parent volunteer
with the best of intentions to serve the school engages in the entirely human practice of
telling a trusted friend about something that happened at school during a volunteer
activity. The seasoned principal is typically mindful of this possibility and careful to
intervene diplomatically by counseling volunteers to respect the privacy of students
and parents by not sharing stories of what happens to the children of others that may
be perceived negatively.
6. Parental Involvement is Different and Distinct From Parental Engagement
The difference between these two phrases is often the hinge point as to whether the
presence of parents is productive or detrimental to the operation of a school,
extending well beyond semantics or the turn of a phrase. Parental involvement has by
far been the more popular phrase in the lexicon of public schooling, though parental
engagement is healthier for children and schools.
Parental involvement is an excellent way to describe the role parents should play in all
aspects of their own child’s education, ideally driven by the needs of the child and the
inclination of the parent to help in a way that matches their ability to help. There is no
formula for success in this realm, in keeping with virtually all aspects of being an
effective parent. The best approach is to do what seems right, and to monitor and
adjust the approach to parental involvement as any child progresses through the
school experience.
Parental engagement is a much better description of the preferred role parents can
play in helping a school or its principal to deliver the best possible experience to all
children. Parental engagement can take the form of serving on committees or regularly
attending meetings of the PTA, PTO, or HSO. It can also include running for a seat on the
board of education, clearly the most productive and responsible way to craft policy
with the legitimate authority to do so and to ensure that the schools are well run without
trying to actually run them.
The last points in this series will examine two additional aspects of the superintendency
that typically receive scant attention in professional preparation programs of study.
Examining aspects of school or district leadership roles that carry more practical than

7. theoretical benefits is the best way to improve practice and to educate the lay-public
as to the challenges faced by principals and superintendents in performing their jobs
well.
New superintendents are typically surprised and often challenged by how much of the
job has very little to do with educating children or raising academic achievement,
especially in districts with frequent turnover in top leadership positions. In some states,
the average length of service for the superintendent position has lately and historically
been fewer than two years, this in a profession that research suggests requires five or
more years of consistent leadership in order to affect meaningful change.
This juxtaposition often results in time spent building trust and establishing a vision with
constituencies that are understandably reluctant to invest in the process. Leadership is
only as effective as the “followship” it inspires, a process that can easily be sidetracked
or completely derailed by the tenuous hold a new superintendent may have on the
position. This difficult, though not atypical, scenario has a direct connection to two
aspects of the superintendency that few anticipate as they acclimate to the job.
7. Much of the Superintendency Often Has Little To Do Directly with Educational Issues
In any district with a full array of extra and co-curricular activities including a robust
interscholastic sports program, issues arising from those offerings frequently and
eventually end up landing on the desk of the superintendent. Even when proper
delegation of authority and responsibility includes interaction with principal or athletic
director as proper initial steps in a parent or student concern, some are never satisfied
with the outcome of events until and unless the superintendent weighs in.
Parents are often at their most unreasonable and least rational when it comes to the
extracurricular or interscholastic athletic activities of their children. Most superintendents
with any time on the job have fielded phone calls or emails that begin with the
statement, “This is not about the playing time of my kid” before a parent launches into
a tirade that clearly or eventually belies that qualifier. It is almost always about playing
time when a parent has a problem with the coach of a sport or the advisor of an
activity.
Another realm that vexes most superintendents is of oversight of the physical plant, an
aspect of district leadership for which most district leaders are ill-prepared. Though
others are nominally in charge of buildings and grounds issues, many board members
and lay-people fully expect the superintendent to know as much as anyone else in the
district about fenestration, EPDM versus built-up roofing, or levels of carbon monoxide
adjacent to all boiler rooms in the district. Time spent on each of those issues is time lost
to overseeing innovation or ensuring gains in academic achievement.

8. 8. Not All Board Members Serve to Advance the Interests of Students
In a perfect world, those who run for a seat on the board of education would have no
political aspirations and only want what’s best for the students of the district. If true, then
Mark Twain was wrong in 1897 when late in his life he infamously wrote: “In the first
place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
In a more practical and realistic assessment, school board members are no more or less
likely than anyone else to exhibit entirely human characteristics like compassion,
ineptitude, or hubris. Their role as policy creators and fiscal overseers is made infinitely
more complicated when parents burden them with unrealistic expectations of instant
improvement and magical solutions to everyday issues. In a well-intentioned effort to
assist parents, many new school board members overstep their authority and promise
more than they could or should deliver when a problem is shared, often in a social
setting far from school time and place.
Into this all-too-typical milieu confidently strides the superintendent, who is instantly
confronted with the need to simultaneously settle an issue while correcting a board
member’s misstep that may have exacerbated it. The seasoned superintendent
immediately recognizes the value and wisdom of enlisting the aid of the board
president in calming the waters and settling the problem, if only by teaching a rouge
board member the blessings of restraint when confronted with an irate or irrational
parent.
Principals and superintendents serve in positions of authority and leadership rivaled by
few if any others in a school district. These roles require patience, wisdom, and the
humility to accept the fact that their jobs are sometimes made more difficult by others
not restrained by professional ethics or a moral compass. Graduate school is important
in the preparation of school and district leaders, and practical experience that only
comes with time spent in these positions is irreplaceable and invaluable. Principals and
superintendents who learn early that locally derived data and its proper analysis by
professionals trained for that task is the best bulwark against making decisions based on
instinct or experience alone.
The things not taught explicitly in graduate school can nevertheless be gleaned by
those who anticipate the many challenges of running a school or a district. By
considering possibilities before they occur and by having a plan for clear-headed and
compassionate leadership, educational leaders are most likely to succeed by
evidencing a foundation of what is best for the social, emotional and academic
success of the students as decisions are rendered and outcomes are delivered.