Complexity Theory, Networking, and the Work of Small-District Superintendents

Abstract

As a future or practicing administrator, you are undoubtedly committed to ISLLC Standard 3, which states that an education leader should promote “the success of every student by ensuring management of the organization, operation, and resources for a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment.” But what does such an environment look like? And how can you possibly ensure management of it when, in a time of dwindling human resources, your work feels like it is 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it seems that there are never enough people to help? In such times, you might believe that managing an organization relies upon trying to control as many elements as you can. Supervising people, handling emergencies as they pop up, and running interference between parents and the district are par for the course in your daily life.

As a principal in small districts, I was always at the board table with the board members, so I got a knowledge of the networking and the way boards work and all those kinds of decisions, and just the little things you can say or the little things that you do that make such an impact on kids. But then from the superintendency end—again it’s not one specific thing—it’s a series of things that just by very small movements or very small suggestions, all of a sudden out of that grows so much positive in things you can do. It’s not just at the board table, but it’s at the correspondence that comes across your desk, the offers that are out there, and it’s that linker. And you realize that you’re the only person there that’s doing that, and if it would not be for you making that phone call to this or latching on to that, all of a sudden a whole series of things set in motion would never be.