GUEST OPINION, April 18
By: Paul D. Houston
The answer to the question of who you’re going to call when a situation happens in a school community is always the same the superintendent. I have joked if I ever write a book on the superintendency. I’m going to call it, "What Are You Going To Do About It?" The reality is that superintendents are always the spear point when a situation arises.
Many players comprise the education mix, from school board members to classroom teachers and principals. If school boards are doing their jobs properly, they are setting policy, approving goals and auditing progress. They are not doing the day-to-day work of implementation.
Likewise, teachers and principals are the "boots on the ground," to borrow a current term. They are on the front lines doing the important work of making progress on a daily basis. But when the unexpected arises and problems present themselves, it is the superintendent who must pull together all the pieces and make things happen up and down the line.
That is why, after the recent disasters of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it was the superintendents who stepped up. Across the country, hundreds of superintendents galvanized their school districts to receive displaced students. They helped welcome them and make them and their families feel at home in a strange place. They worked with their communities to pull together resources, and they organized their systems to provide the educational, psychological and in many cases the logistical help the children and families needed. No one asked, "What’s in it for me?" or even whether extra resources would be forthcoming.
The reality is the floodwaters of Katrina and Rita are but the first of the waves of trouble facing education across the region and country. President Bush has vowed to rebuild the region and make it better than before. He also acknowledged the role that extreme poverty played in the victimization of so many and said that also needs to be addressed. But I would remind the president that the poor are with us in every region and the public schools are the epicenter of dealing with so many who have been left behind.
The good news in all this troubled water is that superintendents will be doing what they always do standing in the gap to provide leadership, vision and compassion. Superintendents aren’t bureaucrats, even though the pressure of the last few years has made them number-crunchers. Superintendents aren’t just the "say no" people who stop parents, teachers and children from having their individual way. They are the village builders who mediate the injustices created by an unfair system and the collaborators who bring the pieces together. They are truly the ghostbusters who, in good times and bad, clear the air and make things safe.
Who you gonna call? We all know the answer to that one.
Dr. Paul Houston is executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. He served as superintendent of the Princeton Regional Schools from 1977 to 1986.

