District Administration- August 2008 - (Page 26)

8th ANNUAL SALARY SURVEY pulled in all directions.” Besides limited funding, superintendents say a major stress of the job is the politics of dealing with multiple constituencies with often diﬀerent agendas, including parents, their own school boards, and state legislators. “It’s more political now than I ever guessed it would be. I didn’t anticipate being as involved as I am with policy change at the state level. It takes time away from my day-to-day responsibilities,” says Matt Miller, superintendent of the Celina (Ohio) City Schools. “There are too many political issues,” adds Lanny Tibaldo, superintendent of the West De Pere (Wis.) School District. “We’re overly mandated by our state and the federal government. They demand so much time, and in the 38 years I have been in education, I haven’t seen many of these mandates work.” Supt. Michael Johnson Bexley (Ohio) City School District District yearly budget: $22 million Student enrollment: 2,200 Geographic location: Medium urban Salary: $180,000 Perks: Tax shelter annuity, full health insurance, dental insurance, car allowance, life insurance Age: 58 Years of experience: 7 in current position, 7 in district Biggest obstacle in past year: Making case for program for emotionally disturbed K6 students Greatest success: Perfect score on state report card in all subjects Necessary improvement: More students taking higher level math and science Bedside reading: A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink Supt. Matt Miller Celina (Ohio) City Schools District yearly budget: $26 million Student enrollment: 2,900 Geographic location: Rural Salary: $95,000 Perks: 25 days vacation, education association fees Age: 36 Years of experience: 3 in current position, 9 in district Biggest obstacle in past year: Getting voters to continue to support operating levies at the polls Greatest success: Continued academic improvement Necessary improvement: Reach excellence in academic performance Bedside reading: The Perfect School by Jim Rosborg, Max McGee, and Jim Burgett INSTRUCTIONAL AND CURRICULUM DIRECTORS With a mean of average salaries of $99,748, up 5 percent from the year before, administrators responsible for instructional services say they face challenges underscored by federal and state mandates like No Child Left Behind and Adequate Yearly Progress standards. NCLB forces instructional service directors to focus on the academic needs of every student and study student-bystudent progress. “The problem is that the administrative burden (time and paperwork) that comes with it is beyond anything that is reasonable,” says Laurie McCullough, director of instructional services in the Waynesboro (Va.) Public Schools and president of the Virginia aﬃliate of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Further, she says, “it seems at times that there’s a gap between the teaching we are doing to satisfy the mandates and the teaching we are doing to prepare kids for their lives after school.” She cites both 26 August 2008 blue- and white-collar employers who say “they don’t need people who are carrying around a lot of facts in their brains. They need people who are ﬂexible thinkers and know how to ﬁnd and evaluate information and use it to solve a problem.” Employers in her area who need people like that range from a Hershey candy manufacturing facility and Wal-Mart distribution center to the University of Virginia and James Madison University with their large numbers of oﬃce workers and managers, health care aides, and other types of positions, McCullough says. Bhavna Sharma-Lewis, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in the Addison (Ill.) School District, says her decisions are driven as well by the needs of her diverse student population, including the 56 percent of students who are English Language Learners. “So a lot of our curriculum decisions are based on what kind of vocabulary, what kind of support they need in order to succeed,” she says. That support, she adds, often includes “a lot of the social and emotional pieces” that students need because of their sometimes challenging home environments. It has become like character education, according to Sharma-Lewis. “The demands of our society require educators to focus on the ‘whole’ child in his or her development and learning and not just the academics of school,” she says. “With many homes having two parents District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration- August 2008

District Administration - August 2008
Contents
Editor's Letter
Letters
News Update
Curriculum
English Language
8th Annual Salary Survey
Do You Know the Drill?
The Evolution of Notification Systems
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
New Products
Problem Solutions
Technology Books
Profession Opinion
Supervisor's Opinion
Crisis Response
Speaking Out
Calendar of Events
Understanding the Times

District Administration- August 2008