The Impact of the Office of Superintendent of Schools on the Personal Lives of Superintendents
Abstract
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to gain deeper understanding of the work lives of Canadian school superintendents by investigating the impact their work lives have on their personal/family lives. Residing at the apex of the K–12 public education system, superintendents serve a unique role as the chief executive officer and as the chief education officer in the school district. The study used qualitative case-study methodology and involved six participant superintendents in semi-structured interviews, two from each of western, Atlantic and northern Canada who had held the position of superintendent for a period of 5 or more years. The findings of this inquiry revealed work life significantly impacted personal and family life. Participant superintendents provided in-depth personal accounts of how the complex and demanding work lives of superintendents made having family lives outside the role challenging. In this study, the participant superintendents, regardless of location or size of school district, all described an all-consuming work life: rampant with political agendas, conflict, public scrutiny, unreasonable expectations, and one where technology has left superintendents even more exposed to the whims of the disenfranchised. The inquiry also revealed, while superintendents recognized student learning was the important work they needed to do, they were clearly hindered across all selected jurisdictions by troublesome and disruptive elements present in their work role. The pervasiveness and extent of the personal toll taken on superintendents and their families by the work role is revealed in clear and explicit detail by the individual narratives from participant superintendents. The evidence is so compelling it calls into question the current system of elected school board governance and forces consideration of how the system can better support school superintendents.
Description
Keywords
Education, Education
Citation
Parsons, D. G. (2016). The Impact of the Office of Superintendent of Schools on the Personal Lives of Superintendents (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28194