0.3 Preparing and training superintendents for the mission of  (Page 11/23)

Student Attendance

Accurate management of the district’s attendance program is critical. In most states the district’s state revenue is driven by attendance count. State reporting forsecondary school drop-outs is becoming a frustrating management problem for many districts and superintendents due to NCLBlegislation.

Support Services Management

Student Transportation

If buses do not run, many districts do not run. Transporting children to and from school safely is animportant legal responsibility for the district and superintendent. Management systems creating bus routes, bus replacement,maintenance, and personnel is a critical management function.

Food Services

Food service operations take place daily in school districts and consume district resources in buildings,personnel, utilities, budget, supervision, and required management hours.

Legal and Professional Services

Districts employ the services of attorneys on a frequent, if not permanent, basis. Superintendents must be ableto use these services to be the best financial benefit to the district. Other professional services managed by the superintendentare certified public accountants, engineers, architects, and medical personnel.

Outsourcing Services

Many districts currently outsource services such as payroll, food service, janitorial service, technology, andtransportation. Superintendents are required to be competent in understanding bids, contracts, contract management, and evaluationof out sourced services.

The Context of Superintendent Management

The level of superintendent participation in the preceding management areas is primarily determined by districtsize, not training, experience, or personal inclination. The number of district administrators or managers available to work with orunder the supervision of the superintendent to accomplish management tasks typically depends on available dollars, enrollmentsize, and board approval. Larger districts have larger central office staffs allowing the superintendent to assign and delegatemany management responsibilities. In most American school districts, superintendents perform the tasks themselves or sharethem with one or two other administrators.

While superintendents may“delegate”tasks to other administrators and managers, they still retain supervisoryand oversight responsibility to insure the management task is completed promptly and correctly. Importantly, they are ultimatelyresponsible to the board, community, and the state for effective and legal districtmanagement.

There appear to be four identifiable superintendent management roles within the nations 14,500 schooldistricts. Again, the size of the district largely determines the context of the role. The district size categories used in thispaper illustrate or describe four superintendent“management”break out roles. These size groups have been used in the last fifty yearsin the American Association of School Administrator’s“Ten Year”superintendent studies.

The very large districts serve more than 25,000 students. There are 225 of these districts. The second sizecategory is large districts serving 3,000 to 25,000 students. About 2,700 districts fall into this category. There are 7,400 mediumsize districts enrolling 300 to 3,000 students each. The fourth and last category is small districts, which is comprised of 2,300districts. Each of the small districts is comprised of 300 or fewer students. The average size of the nearly 14,000 functioning schooldistricts in the United States is about 2,400 students (Glass, Bjork,&Brunner, 2000).