Leadership Lite
School Administrator, August 2022

That’s Painful

While accepting the National Superintendent of the Year award earlier this year at the AASA national conference, Curtis Cain said that 2022 had been harder in many respects than the uncertain moments when the COVID-19 pandemic first took hold in 2020 when supply lines made it difficult to locate key staples.

And just how painful had his work as a superintendent in the St. Louis, Mo., area become?

“It’s been like soccer without shin guards,” he said.
 
 
The Wild Name Game

Chris Kennedy had an idea that new nicknames could raise the coolness quality of schools. So back in early spring, the superintendent of the West Vancouver schools in British Columbia said he introduced his plan via his widely read blog “to preempt any future community controversies.”

Kennedy announced new names for all of the high schools’ logos and mascots to deliver contemporary relevance. Out with all of the Tigers, Bears, Eagles, Wildcats and Crusaders. In their place, he welcomed the Snapchatting Sharks, the Pokémon, the Wild Memes and Cobra Kai. Staff came to school dressed to celebrate their schools’ new nicknames.

But one high school parent was not so pleased. He angrily phoned Kennedy in mid-morning and demanded to know if the superintendent had any appreciation for tradition.

“I told him I did appreciate traditions, including the one we had of playing silly jokes each year on the morning of April 1,” the superintendent said. “There was about a 5-second pause. And then he said, ‘Crap, you got me!’ And he hung up.”
 
 
Prepared for a Lively Situation

Marty Pollio, superintendent of the 96,000-student Jefferson County Schools in Kentucky, attributes some of the best early training he received for his current job to his time holding down a particular job in college.

Pollio served as the student manager of the men’s basketball team at Indiana University between 1989 and 1993 under the direction of the Hall of Fame coach Bobby Knight. The tempestuous and irascible coach is vividly remembered for tossing a folding chair onto the middle of a basketball court in angry response to a referee’s call and other volatile acts.

“If there was anything that taught me to be a superintendent … that four years probably did it,” said Pollio, who hasn’t followed suit by tossing pencils angrily at a school board member during his nearly five years in the superintendency.
 
Short, humorous anecdotes, quips, quotations and malapropisms for this column relating to school district administration should be addressed to: Editor, School Administrator, 1615 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314. Fax: 703-841-1543. Email: magazine@aasa.org. Upon request, names may be withheld in print.