Making Sense of Comings and Goings.

As I compose this editor's message during the final days of 1998, I've been struck by the spate of recent phone calls coming my way from newspaper reporters inquiring about a common phenomenon: the rapid comings and goings of their superintendent of schools. They look to me and my colleagues at AASA to provide some context and understanding for what they are observing in their local communities.

For sure, the movement of school district leaders from one job to the next is nothing peculiar to the late 1990s. One need only glance at the ample number of transition items carried every month on this magazine's People page. (And AASA members are always welcome to contribute to that compilation.) But what the news folks seem to be spotting and interested in addressing is the disruptive, mid-year nature of these exits, many of them forced.

Sadly, every new phone call seems to bring another example of an impatient or wayward school board in the midst of buying out another superintendent's contract.

This issue of The School Administrator examines some pertinent angles related to superintendent working conditions. In Priscilla Pardini's article, "When Termination's in the Air," you'll read what colleagues have done when it appeared board members were ready to strike against them. Then, in "The Right Badge of Courage," Springfield, Mass., Superintendent Peter Negroni discusses the need to pick one's battles carefully to preserve a community's continuity in school leadership.

Other feature articles look at performance pay incentives in superintendents' contracts, AASA's renewed effort to enact pension portability across state lines and the first-year learning curve of superintendents who come from outside the education ranks. We also take up the related matter of wellness among superintendents.

If you have any additional ideas to contribute on these issues, please let me know. We are certain to revisit them before long.

Jay P. Goldman

Voice: 703-875-0745

E-mail: [e-mail]