AREA DISTRICTS SEARCH FOR SUPERINTENDENTS; SCHOOL LEADERS FOLLOW STATEWIDE TREND

Three area school superintendents might be following a statewide trend in their decisions to look for other job opportunities at the end of this school year.

Superintendents in the Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Perryville school districts have all announced their resignations within recent weeks.

Dr. Gary Sharpe, executive director of the Missouri Association of School Administrators, thinks their decisions to move on are a sign of the times.

Expanded job duties, higher performance expectations and overall increased stress levels are only a small sampling of the factors causing superintendents to opt out after only a few years at a post, he said.

"We know that it has gone down," said Sharpe of the average tenures of superintendents over the years. "We're seeing more retirements and movements, and it's a great concern to lots of folks in the public education industry who's going to fill these vacancies."

Dr. Dan Tallent of Cape Girardeau, Dr. Howard Jones of Jackson, and Dr. Rex Miller of Perryville will leave office July 1. Each worked fewer than five years as superintendent in their district.

Tallent and Miller are both seeking head positions at other school districts. Both have struggled with tight finances in recent years and said job frustration can cause school administrators to reconsider their options.

Miller has worked with Perryville school board members to get voter-approval of a bond issue or tax increase to meet building needs. His decision to leave was made in part because the district's low school tax levy made it difficult for him to do his job effectively.

"I didn't want to leave this community in the middle of a struggle," he said. "It's always been a tough job being a superintendent. This has been the toughest superintendency I've had due to the money factor."

Tallent recently headed up a successful bond issue initiative to finance construction of a new elementary school, high school and vocational school facilities. However, he wants to make sure he is being 100 percent effective in his position, wherever that might be.

"You have to feel like you're able to get the things done you need to get done, and if not, then you have to look for another situation," he said. "Being a school administrator is a way of life."

After 35 years as an educator, Jones chose to retire to pursue other educational opportunities. Jackson schools are accommodating a tremendous growth spurt thanks to the passage three years ago of a bond issue for new construction, but the timing is right for another administrator to take over leadership, Jones said.

Jones wants to find "a less demanding job" in higher education or at the state level.

Consultants are being used more often today to help school districts fill positions, Sharpe said. Quite often, however, superintendent searches have to be expanded because the applicant pool does not meet a school district's needs.

The Missouri School Boards Association is conducting the superintendent search for the Cape Girardeau school board, and negotiations are under way to involve the organization in the Jackson search.

The Perryville school board has not decided if it will use a consultant.

"We're seeing more outreach to try to secure candidates for the jobs," said Sharpe. "We're seeing more instances of a second round of applications and interviews because people are not satisfied with either the number or the quality of the applicants in the first round."

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and organizations like MASA are working to improve and increase candidate pools by recruiting people to become school administrators, said Sharpe.

Special workshops and training sessions and easier certification procedures for out-of-state administrators are just a few of the issues the groups are collaborating on to ensure the availability of school administrators doesn't dip to critical levels, he said.

"It's certainly a timely topic because we are at the standpoint that the field of candidates is dwindling in many areas," he said. "We have to be very concerned about it."