America’s schools are facing a problem when it comes to hiring superintendents willing to take political heat and modern pressures. Many aren’t up to the challenge, and hundreds are expected to quit the profession.
According to a report by Fox News, anywhere between 1,500 and 2,000 superintendents are leaving their jobs during this school year.
"Superintendents are spending a lot of time addressing socio-political concerns and not nearly the amount of time they want to spend on the development and the educational attainment of students," said Michael Collins of the Ray & Associates consulting firm.
The company works with school boards as the main client and their job is finding superintendents. In the case of North Texas, that entails replacing nine superintendents within a period of three months.
In places like Virginia the politics issue recently presented itself last month, after seven school boards sued Governor Glenn Youngkin over his executive order that made masks optional.
Over in New York earlier this week, Governor Kathy Hochul mentioned her discussions with school system administrators when it came to deciding to continue the COVID mask policy.
New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul says after "consultation" with "superintendents, principals, PTA leaders...teachers, administrators," she's "not ready yet" to end her forced masking in schools policy. pic.twitter.com/AjT2bTH5e5
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 9, 2022
Molly Schwarzhoff is the executive vice president of Ray & Associates and she sounded off on how COVID changed the relationship dynamic between a school board and superintendent candidate.
"They always did their homework, but now they have the opportunity to see board members to see where they stand on the political realm and how they interact with one another before even submitting an application," she says.
Democrats in Oregon are planning more direct intervention. After a far left superintendent in the state was fired by the school in November 2021 after refusing to enforce a ban on political symbols in the classroom, legislators introduced a bill that’d take away the school board’s ability for "no-cause" firing.
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