Who should run the School District?

Tough question to answer. But with new movies coming out about education and parents taking over schools, someone needs to answer it. So…here goes.

First, you have a superintendent. This person is hired to run the day to day operations of the district. They are typically, but not always, a career educator. They usually have multiple degrees, all in education, along with a career that has taken them from teacher to assistant principal to principal to district something to assistant superintendent to superintendent. In other words, they have been the rounds and worked their way to the top.

Second, you have an elected school board. Usually parents, they come from all walks of life and their experience with school usually started with the PTA or other volunteer organizations. In Utah, they have often been involved with the school community council. Someone has told them there is an opening and since no one else is running and they have experience at the school level, they should run. They would be really good at that job.

So, who runs the district? The professional or the amateur? Those are your choices.

Here is my take. The district is under the direction of the school board. They are elected and they are the ones held responsible and accountable for what happens at the schools. They are not professionals, and that may be the best thing about them.

The superintendent should direct the daily operations of the district based on the vision and direction of the school board. He is their employee, not the other way around. He should share his ideas with the board and they should use him as a resource. But the ultimate direction of the district should come from the school board, and not from the superintendent.

That runs opposite of what most educators would like to see. The best example of why this would be the way to go is known in the business world as disruptive innovation. You can check the case studies on why a US Steel dies while a Nucor Steel takes over. US Steel listened to its customers and Nucor Steel looked at the marketplace. US Steel did nothing wrong in the business sense and made good business decisions. Nucor Steel just created a new way of doing business that was better than US Steel. They win.

The same thing is happening in education. Take for example the use of technology in the classroom. Many districts think putting more computers in meets the need. But today’s student uses a reader, a phone, a tablet to access information. And we tell them those tools are not welcome in the classroom. Why? Because we are scared of what will happen if they use them. Today we are finding out that what happens when they use those tools is called learning. The way they have learned how to learn.

Following the school boards vision and mission gives you the chance to try something new and innovative. They are not from education so they do not see the same limits that many educators do. They come from different careers and lives and they bring that to the board and to education. Their ideas should be leading the way.

That doesn’t mean you take away the superintendent. They are the ones that take that vision and the innovation and finds a way to make it work in the classroom. Too many times we see the superintendent stop the innovation or slow it down until it gets forgotten. The key is to find the superintendent that is looking forward and wants to make things happen. Then the board has a friend that not only supports the vision but takes it to higher levels.

Districts have two choices: Stay where they are and get the results they are used to or jump on the train and move out in front on education to really make things happen. That is what the board is elected to do.