From 11 Tips for Savvy Superintendents: The Communication Factor in Superintendent Success (hyperlink to sidebar text below)

The primary purpose of the school leader is to bind the district and the community together in support of a powerful vision for student learning. The only effective tool for meeting this challenge is a comprehensive communication plan.

— Dr. Max Riley, Superintendent Randolph, (NJ) Public Schools, 5,500 students

Maintaining an effective working relationship with your stakeholders is key to superintendent survival.

Just as raising student achievement requires baseline data, making continual progress in community support requires hard baseline data. Superintendents must know their district culture, the thinking of various school groups, and how specific groups will react to district initiatives and decisions. Savvy superintendents know who pulls the strings to make the community move one direction or the other and how to get the community solidly behind a united school vision.

The mantra of Dr. Margaret Nichols, a respected superintendent who enjoyed a long tenure through crisis-ridden, turbulent times, was, “You only see your own district clearly the first 6 months you are in your position. After that, you had better ask someone else and it had better be the right person.”

During her long tenure in the Eugene ( Ore. ) School District , Nichols tracked community attitudes as diligently as she researched student achievement scores. Her communication office regularly conducted community research and built targeted, strategic communication plans based on that research. She knew she had to have the community solidly behind her to reach her goal of providing the best possible education for each of the 18,000 students attending the Eugene schools.

Study after study validates what Nichols knew and practiced. One study of Texas superintendents in 2001 by J. K Byrd found increased student achievement depends on a superintendent increasing the lines of communication among stakeholders.

11 Tips for Savvy Superintendents: The Communication Factor in Superintendent Success is part of the 2008 AASA/NSPRA Back-to-School Toolkit for School Leaders. Members of the American Association of School Administrators and the National School Public Relations Association can access the Toolkit online.