Lee Teitel (standing) is founding director of a project for educators on diversity and equity at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. PHOTO BY JANET STEARNS

Veteran superintendent Roy Seitsinger was consulting with fellow superintendents on one district leader’s plans to promote social justice in her mostly white New England school district. The turning point in their discussion came about 15 minutes into their session.

A superintendent for about 10 years in her district, she told of receiving unanimous support from her board of education for moving forward with the initiative but now was facing vocal pushback from a small group in the community. (The superintendent is not being identified here because of the sensitivity of the issues involved.)

“The hardest part of this is looking inside,” Seitsinger advised his colleague. “The community is experiencing it the same way. … I’m telling you: The racism issue is a problem and there has to be a change. But part of that change is taking a piece of your personality and [tearing it right out].”

Sharing Dilemmas

Seitsinger, who serves as superintendent of the 440-student Preston Public Schools in eastern Connecticut, is part of a small distinctive group of white superintendents of predominantly white districts. They are engaged in a structured consultation protocol in a recently formed network focusing on “Personal and Professional Work on Race, Racism and Equity.”

In each group session, one member shares a dilemma. For the first few minutes after the presentation of the above case, the superintendent received praise for what she already had done. “It was a textbook approach,” one superintendent told her. “I hope you don’t mind if I steal it.” Then they moved into probing questions about how she has been able to reach common agreement in the use of terminology about anti-racism, equity and social justice. They asked about those occasions when the presenter has reached out to opposing groups, how much she has listened first, before trying to persuade them, or how much she had mobilized others.

Jeff Newton, superintendent in East Lyme, Conn., questioned whether she has a school district committee of some sort working on this issue — or if she has been going it alone. The superintendent in Waterford, Tom Giard, commented on the presenter’s “preoccupation with community opinion,” urging her to focus on the good work on race that’s taking place with teachers and students and then cycle back to the community.

After listening silently for 10 minutes of insights and feedback, the presenter rejoined with reflections of her own, acknowledging that “we let ourselves lose control of the narrative” around the definitions of the social justice work. She shared a more personal insight: “There is a personal character issue that I need to address. There is a part of me that wants to be the martyr/hero. … How do I give some of this away, to the board, to other members of the community and let go of this martyr complex?”

She thanked her colleagues for their constructive comments and candor. “This has been lurking in the back my mind, but I recognize it more clearly hearing you frame it,” she said. “This is a character flaw for all superintendents. We want to be the problem solvers. “

Peer Journeys

The network is the brainchild of Kate Ericson, executive director of the LEARN Regional Educational Service Center in Old Lyme, Conn., and de facto superintendent of six racially mixed magnet schools. Ericson had participated in an Equity Improvement Network I facilitated a year earlier for LEARN and found herself wanting more support in leading equity work across her system of schools. She thought her peer superintendents might want something similar, so we jointly designed a set of monthly meetings for the superintendents that drew on race and equity improvement work that I have helped develop at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Ronald Heifetz’s Adaptive Leadership approach.

Different personal and professional journeys led these white Connecticut superintendents to take on the hard work of racial equity and social justice in their communities and for the young people they serve.

For Paul Freeman, an experienced superintendent in Guilford, a small coastal Connecticut town with an 85 percent white student enrollment, the urgency to join a network focusing on race, racism and equity came from white graduates coming back on visits to tell him they felt unprepared for the diverse world outside of their town.

Many of his colleagues were motivated by the deaths last spring of George Floyd and others at the hands of police and the resultant increased awareness of systemic racism that spread across the nation. When Ericson proposed the idea of the network, these superintendents responded because, while they knew they needed to do something to address racism and inequities, they were not sure what to do.

All of the participating superintendents are white, and their districts are mostly white with enrollments of students of color ranging from 2 percent to 25 percent. In many ways, they represent the predominantly white ranks of superintendents (almost 90 percent nationwide, according to AASA’s 2020 decennial survey of the superintendency). They run districts that exemplify the experience of almost half the white students in the U.S., who are largely isolated from students of color, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. They are figuring out what it means to be white superintendents who care about race and equity in mostly white communities that can be indifferent or have pockets of strong opposition or supporters who are scared or unsure how to proceed.

Most of these school leaders grew up in predominantly white communities, though a few came from more diverse places. Either way, they were afforded the privileges of being white, and explicitly or implicitly learned racism in their families or communities. In this way, they represent many white Americans. As they work to define leadership roles in combating racism that feel authentic and to which they can be held accountable, they also are wrestling with their own unlearning, recognizing their own biases, acknowledging the racism that affects us all by virtue of growing up and living in this country.

They understand their capacity to grow as equity leaders is directly correlated to their personal growth and that they may be able to use insights into the steps of their own anti-racist journeys to create paths to guide other white people on their staff and in their community.

What Can We Learn?

Most of those in the network are experienced superintendents, yet on these issues, they are, as one put it, “going from the familiar to the scary.” The adaptive work of shaping those communities, helping white people understand and change their values on race and racism is daunting. Here are some of the things they are working on and learning from one another in the network:

»Developing their personal understanding of race, racism and what it means to be white.

The majority see themselves as novices. “This is a new personal journey for me, at the same time that I am leading it,” said one superintendent. “Six months ago [before George Floyd’s death] I couldn’t have told you what ‘anti-racism’ means. And now I am leading my district and my board.”

»Figuring out how to use their own racial journeys to lead others.

They realize they can connect to other whites in their communities by being vulnerable and sharing how they have deepened their understanding of how being white has impacted their life or “by listening and developing the right framework for entry, [leading] reluctant members of the community into a valid understanding of how our schools need to do better for our students,” as one participant put it. They feel a moral and ethical obligation, which motivates and can be challenging. Observes Ericson: “It is hard when I talk to whites who don’t see it — whose journey is so different than mine — without saying, ‘What’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you coming with me?’ You know that you have a long way to go, and they aren’t even on the path with you.”

»Learning to use their adaptive leadership skills to mobilize a varied set of stakeholders.

The deep hearts-and-minds work of changing racial beliefs and practices means keeping pressure on predominantly white boards, staff, students and parents, without pushing too hard or fast. The superintendent in the opening vignette struggled with being the sole hero/martyr. Another worries, “Will I lose the support of my staff if I push too hard or my board or maybe even my job?”

A Trusted Setting

Despite, or perhaps because of, these shared challenges, the superintendents in the network are energized. They recognize that racism is a white problem and should be addressed by whites. They are humble about what they know and don’t know and are excited to be learning together in a trusted setting, reading and applying ideas about racism and leadership through practical structured consultations. They want more superintendents, especially white superintendents, to do this kind of work — as a way to break the cycle of perpetuating systemic racism.

Maryann O’Donnell, the fifth-year superintendent in Clinton, Conn., captures this along with the personal, professional and practical focus of the challenge: “I can’t lead any of this work until I really explore myself on this topic. I need to be able to manage myself in this environment, and I don’t think I am ready to do that. Without my own personal work, I won’t be able to help people tolerate the discomfort they are experiencing or have any insight into the discomfort they are feeling. Therefore, I won’t be able to lead a process or know what the most important leverage point is to benefit our students.

“I want to shape our students to be anti-racists and to empower them to be capable of influencing the future to create a more equitable and inclusive society. If they have the same experiences and learning as we did, they will find themselves less capable of functioning successfully in the world and will perpetuate and defend what is currently in place.”

LEE TEITEL is the founding director of the Reimagining Integration: The Diverse and Equitable Schools Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Mass.