Today’s post continues a series in which educators offer advice to district superintendents.

‘Empathy Is a Plus’

PJ Caposey is the superintendent of schools for Oregon CUSD 220 and a former Illinois State Superintendent of the Year and a runner-pp for the National Superintendent of the Year through the American Association of School Administrators:

As a superintendent with over a decade of experience, I’ve come to understand the complexities of the role and the thankless nature that sometimes accompanies those complexities. While the role is difficult, I simply love it. I cannot imagine a job that offers a more profound opportunity to shape a community and I love the immense responsibility that places on my shoulders.

I offer all superintendents three core pieces of advice when it comes to the job. For most, these are simply reminders. But they serve as beacons for helping me to return to what I know is important when in times of struggle or stress.

1. Energy Is Currency: My mentor once said, “If the leader sneezes, the organization catches a cold.” This rings especially true for superintendents. Despite the late nights, tough meetings, and demanding weeks, it’s crucial to bring positive energy and enthusiasm to the job.

As the driving force behind the organization, your attitude sets the tone for the entire district. Regardless of the challenges you face, maintaining a spirit of optimism and determination is essential for fostering a culture of resilience and growth.

We simply cannot expect our teams to bring it for our kids every day when we do not bring it for them.

2. Empathy Is a Plus, Understanding Is a Must: To lead effectively, it’s imperative to understand the lived experiences of students, teachers, parents, and administrators. This requires ongoing engagement and active listening, not just during the initial stages of leadership but throughout your tenure.

By prioritizing empathy and seeking to understand the diverse perspectives within your district, you can make more informed decisions that truly serve the needs of your community. This cannot just be the “listening and learning” tour at the beginning of a new leader’s tenure. It must remain a focus. The true student, staff, and community experience should drive all complex decisionmaking in the district.

3. Focus on Serving, Not Pleasing: While superintendents technically work for the board of education, their true allegiance lies with the students, staff, and community they serve. It’s natural to want to please your bosses and maintain political favor, but true leadership means prioritizing the needs of those you lead above all else.

Every time I have felt lost, discouraged, or simply unenthusiastic I realize that my focus has drifted toward pleasing my superiors instead of serving those I have the privilege to lead. It is natural to want to please your bosses, but the best leaders I know focus OUT instead of UP.

In conclusion, the superintendency is far from easy, but it doesn’t have to be overly complex. By embracing these three principles—bringing positive energy, seeking understanding, and prioritizing service over appeasement—you can navigate the challenges of the role with clarity and purpose.

As you embark on this journey or seek to reignite your passion for the work, remember that your impact extends far beyond the walls of the school building. With dedication, empathy, and a relentless focus on serving others, you have the power to make a lasting difference in the lives of students, educators, and the community you get to serve.

‘A Shared Vision’

Bryan Goodwin is the president and CEO of McREL International, a nonprofit organization that provides in-depth professional learning and school improvement services to school systems worldwide to help educators use the science of teaching, learning, and leading to lift all learners:

Over the past year, some of my colleagues and I have been working with high-performing, veteran superintendents in the Midwest to design a comprehensive professional development system for new district leaders. We’ve looked at research on what new superintendents need to know and be able to do and we’ve also spoken to successful, veteran superintendents in a variety of settings—urban, suburban, and rural—to ask them “What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you first took the job?” Here’s what they told us:

Do more listening and less talking

Many new leaders feel they ought to be doing most of the talking in meetings. After all, people want to hear what they think, right? But experienced leaders tell us that the ability to “listen people into solutions” may be the most important skill any leader can have.

For example, one veteran leader shared how the act of listening turned a contentious conversation around a school closing into a collaborative one, when it became apparent community members’ biggest concern wasn’t whether to close the school itself (most understood that declining enrollment made it a necessity) but rather, what to do with the building and whether families would have a choice of where to send their children. As it turned out, most selected the school the district would’ve chosen but were happier when they could choose for themselves.

Don’t offer a vision, create a shared one

Many new superintendents believe (and are sometimes told by their boards) that it’s on them to have a compelling vision for their district. There’s some truth in that: Districts need a clear sense of direction. Yet, there’s another word for having a vision no one else sees: a hallucination. Veteran leaders confided in us that one of the biggest mistakes many of them made when they first landed the role was failing to engage others in creating a compelling vision and strategic plan for the district.

Many of them shared that next time around, when they developed their district’s second strategic plan, they took an entirely different approach, engaging their board, educators and support staff, and students, families, and community in creating a shared vision for a better future. Doing so created a stronger, more complete vision and strategic plan that united the community. After all, no one needs to “buy into” a vision they’ve had a hand in creating. They own it already.

Go slow to go fast

Time and again, experienced leaders look back on their first few years on the job and see that they tried to do too much, too fast—sometimes under the misapprehension that they didn’t want to “waste their honeymoon.” But doing too much at once leads to doing many things poorly and few things well, a recipe for chaos, conflict, and disappointment.

Drawing on their own experiences (and the cautionary tales of others’ misfortunes), the veteran superintendents we spoke with all advise new leaders “to go slow to go fast.” Spend the first year or two building relationships with board, staff, and community members. Take notes. Build trust. Ask good questions. As you do that, build a plan with others for what steps you’ll take together to take your district to the next level.

This guidance not only reflects decades of professional wisdom, it also aligns with research findings. Years ago, a McREL meta-analysis of district leadership found that high-performing districts develop a shared vision and set of accompanying goals that then guide strategic planning and resource allocation from the boardroom to the classroom. The operative word here is a shared vision—something that takes listening, collaboration, and patience.

‘An Intentional Approach’

Dwayne Chism is the founder of Shifting Perspectives Inc., an organization geared toward creating equitable educational outcomes for student. His latest book, Leading Your School Toward Equity, was a 2023 finalist for the Excellence in Equity Award presented by the American Consortium for Equity in Education:

Building a culture of coherence across an entire educational system is a common challenge superintendents face. Coherence is crucial for achieving equity, making it a necessity for leaders at the top to establish a common language and a clearly defined vision with stakeholder groups. Here are three pieces of advice for a superintendent to address this challenge:

1. Establish a Clear and Shared Vision: If a vision is loosely implemented, people within the system will develop and work toward their own interest. Ensure that all stakeholders deeply understand the why and how of what is being sought. To accomplish this, create a vision for a future state of being that is formed around multiple sources of data, including the voices of those who are negatively impacted by the data.

2. Strategically Align Goals, Resources, and Practices: It’s not enough to have a vision on paper. Superintendents must create a clear through line between the vision and those expected to execute it. This involves strategically aligning goals, resources, and practices to ensure the vision is effectively translated into action. This is achieved by keeping the vision at the forefront of people’s minds. Help the organization understand what specific words/elements crafted in your vision look, feel, and sound like when operating effectively in the system, thus allowing deeper understanding around how present and future actions or decisions correlate.

3. Regularly Monitor and Reinforce the Vision: Every idea, program, or problem-solving process must go through the litmus test of alignment to the vision. Superintendents must remain vigilant and hyperfocused on the vision by monitoring progress and having a system of checks and balances to ensure daily actions move in the direction of the goal. Vision statements should live in the everyday actions and decisions, not just on the building walls. Ask, how does this action support or hinder our vision? What is the return on our investment?

The foundation that a school system is built on is everything. Each of these strategies is not new in concept but can easily be compromised when there is lack of an intentional approach to creating a culture of coherence around shared goals and values.

Engage With Teachers

Amanda Muffler is in her 10th year of teaching secondary English. She is a current Utah Teacher Fellow:

Superintendents have a difficult job, there’s no doubt about it. Oftentimes, people can get frustrated with superintendents because they feel like they aren’t being heard or because they feel undervalued.

To combat these complaints and to have/maintain positive rapport within a district, superintendents should consider the following two pieces of advice: 1. Get to know your teachers, and 2. Be present throughout the district.

1. Get to know your teachers. The best superintendent I had the pleasure of working for knew every teacher that worked within our district—and I mean he knew us. Whenever I saw him, he would address me by name and ask pertinent questions about my classroom and personal life. (I’m honestly not sure how he accomplished this, though I have heard rumors of flashcards and study sessions.)

I know districts vary greatly in size and staffing and I myself have worked in districts where this would be near impossible for an individual to accomplish. However, regardless of the size of the district, or the amount of staff, superintendents can and should get to know their teachers. Everyone in education can agree that when you build a positive relationship with a student, they are more likely to be engaged and in turn are more likely to learn and be successful.

The same is true for adults. If teachers feel that their superintendents have a genuine interest in getting to know them and the work they are doing, they are more likely to be more engaged in that work, and that will result in better learning environments for our students.

2. Be present throughout the district. This goes along with the first piece of advice because you can’t get to know people if you aren’t present and seeing what they are doing on a regular basis.

Superintendents shouldn’t be people who primarily stick within the confines of the district office and are only seen in the school buildings for evaluations or district-level walk-throughs. Superintendents should have a vested interest in what is happening within every school they oversee, and the best way to know what is going on is to see it for themselves. It also helps to build positive relationships and trust between students, staff/teachers, administration, and district-level employees.

It can be easy to assume negative intentions or make brash decisions when you don’t have personal relationships. But if staff and teachers have a personal relationship with their superintendent, it stands to reason that they would be more likely to support district initiatives and feel more comfortable advocating needs as they see them. Being present also allows the superintendent to see needs and be an advocate for the students and staff they oversee.

Thanks to PJ, Bryan, Dwayne, and Amanda for contributing their thoughts!

Today’s post answered this question:

What one to three pieces of advice would you offer to a superintendent of a school district, and why would you offer those specific suggestion/s?

In Part One, Tiffany Anderson, Diana Laufenberg, Doug Fisher, and Nancy Frey shared their suggestions.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on X at @Larryferlazzo or on Bluesky at @larryferlazzo.bsky.social .

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