Rural Kansas Superintendents’ Priorities: Perceptions About What Pre-Service Superintendents Expected to Do and What They Actually Do.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to describe how rural superintendents identify their priorities before accepting their first superintendency compared to how they actually prioritize these responsibilities once becoming a superintendent. I asked rural superintendents to rate the relative importance (i.e., Not important, Important, or Essential) of five major areas: 1) selection, socialization, and monitoring of teachers/principals; 2) supervision and evaluation; 3) board/superintendent relationships; 4) goals and resource allocation; and 5) understanding the community. Superintendents reported changes in their understanding and prioritization of responsibilities once in that role compared to their preconceived ideas of the priorities. Selecting, socialization, and retention of teachers/principals were essential priorities, while developing leadership capacity in teachers/principals from a global perspective based on a strategic plan incorporating stakeholder perspectives was also essential for their rural districts. Board of education/superintendent relationships were essential to building mutual trust and develop interpersonal communication. Lastly, actively participating in their local rural community was critical for rural superintendents in order to maintain the trust of the community. In other words, superintendents serving in rural communities and the ideal positions that they loved individually assume multiple roles and responsibilities leading their school districts compared to superintendents in larger districts who have multiple subordinates where distributed leadership and delegation of responsibilities are more common.