0.3 Preparing and training superintendents for the mission of  (Page 20/23)

The depth of a“management”curriculum is precise and detailed. An example would be that superintendents mustbe able to insure the state accounting manual provisions are being adhered to in a proper manner. Few superintendents have takenundergraduate courses in accounting and fewer have had a general introduction to accounting in their education administrationpreparation program. These state accounting manuals are typically hundreds of pages of complex information and detailed forms. Thisinformation is currently only provided occasionally by state agencies and professional associations and rarely provided byhigher education classes. Most often this information is acquired (sometimes well and sometimes not so well) via on the job training.Many citizens might be quite upset to learn their superintendent (“chief executive officer”) managing a 50 million dollar budget has little if any understanding of basic accounting (or bookkeeping)functions. The same can be said of many other important (and expensive) areas of district operations such as fringe benefits,workers compensation, and investments.

A Compendium of“Best Practices”

The complexity of district management requires a substantial compendium of“best practices”to insure efficient and effective management. This compendium, built on averified knowledge and a validated standards base, should be a joint work of university, state agency, and professionalassociations. This district management“bible”might merge university textbooks, state manuals, and professional associationpublications into a usable“best practices”text. The curriculum needs to be built on research, not anecdotal accounts orconventional wisdom based on flawed professional practice.

Again, an extensive validation process is needed to insure“best practices”in the compendium are realistic, appropriate and inclusive for the various sizes and types ofdistricts. The compendium topics might influence the curriculum of higher education courses, topics of state agency training, andevaluation standards for professional recognition. It should insure alignment between the university programs, state agency, andprofessional associations concerns. These compendia of best practices would serve as the base documents for the three tierrecognition assessment.

Five Domains of Superintendent Executive Management

There are five domains of management preparation for superintendents (1) fiscal, (2), personnel, (3)support services (4) facilities, and (5) student services. Each domain can be developed into an instructional and performancemodule.

Module 1–Fiscal

This critical module is focused on planning and managing the finances of school districts. The role of theuniversity based program should be to disseminate content knowledge about state financing, taxing systems, budgeting systems, basiccontract law, risk management programs, and structures of salary/wage management. This probably should be a 9 or 12 semesterhour course sequence in finance, budget, and operations management. Practicum and field experience hours need to be required forstudents to experience first hand fiscal, budget, and operations systems at work in“model”school districts. Importantly, the course content (if possible) would extend previous learning at themaster’s (principal licensing) level. An example is“budgeting at the building level,”a common content area in many master’s programs in educational administration.