What does the “Point Man” in an infantry combat patrol have in common with a school superintendent in a small school system? Answer: “Both know they may lose their “job” at any moment.” I spent a little over ten years as a school superintendent in small school systems in Missouri. My job was on the line on a daily basis because practically every time I made a decision I also made an enemy, and as one of fellow superintendents told me when I first became a superintendent; “Friends come and go; enemies accumulate.
My first job as a school superintendent was in a rural school in a hamlet so isolated that as some folks said, “It wasn’t situated on a road between anything and anything else. You had to want to go there to get there.” All the students who didn’t drive their cars were bused in from the surrounding hills and hollers of the Ozarks. I came to the job fresh from a typically liberal College of Education so I was filled with liberal zeal to fundamentally transform the world around me. But as one of the traveling salesmen said in the opening song of “The Music Man,” I “didn’t know the territory.” I had never taught in a small rural school and had never lived in a backwoods setting. I was as out-of-place as Dorothy when she found herself in “The Land of Oz.” Unlike Dorothy, however, I didn’t realize just how different things were in my new home and job and I didn’t come across three helpful friends.
To make matters worse I hadn’t taken the sequence of courses that would have prepared me be a superintendent. My career goal was to be a Curriculum Director in some fairly good-sized school district so most of my studies were in that field rather than in school administration. But personal circumstances forced me to take what I could get at that point in time. So I plunged into the white-capped and turbulent waters that surround school superintendents, determined to do the job.
The first year was pretty much a “honeymoon.” I kept a low profile and frequently called the superintendent in a nearby school district to ask his advice. I made a few bad decisions such as not “excusing” the absence of the high school boys who had skipped school to go hunting on the opening day of deer hunting season. I heard some grumbling from a few students and their parents but I pointed out to them that “getting an education is more important than getting a deer” and thought that settled the matter. I didn’t know it at the time but all it did was teach them to keep their grumbling to themselves, their neighbors and –more significantly- the School Board. Whatever they thought about it the School Board didn’t chastise me and when March came they renewed my contract for another year. I began to sort of even like being a superintendent.
Year two began with me feeling more confidence in myself. I wasn’t hearing much criticism from parents and the old-time teachers who had been there “forever.” I took that as a sign that the ship was on course and making good progress. Now that I was no longer a rookie I began to flex my muscles to “transform” this little school. Although I was, and am, a practicing Christian; at the time my liberal training had filled me with the belief that the “wall” that existed between church and state should be maintained.
All schools have a teachers’ workroom that has a copy machine, paper cutter and other such tools. From the first day I arrived I had noticed that in the elementary school’s workroom a large portrait of Christ hung above the copy machine, but although I “knew” it was “wrong” to have a religious icon prominently displayed in a school I had held my tongue throughout the first year. The week before school started for my second year I told the grade school secretary to take that painting down. When the teachers returned they noticed it was gone. They asked the secretary about it and she told them truthfully, “Dr. Carriker told me to take it down. That it didn’t belong in a school building.” A few days later a delegation of veteran grade school teachers came to my office to protest what I’d done. I explained to them that it was “against the law” and that I didn’t want the ACLU to sue the school district. They accepted my explanation and went away. Word of what I’d done was soon common knowledge among parents but again the school board didn’t reprimand me.
Later that year while walking through the elementary school building I saw several posters advertising a “Revival” at the local Baptist Church. I immediately went into the grade school office and told the secretary to tell whoever put those posters up to take them down. I pointed out that if we allowed a church to advertise its meetings in the school building and if there were a local Ku Klux Klan that wanted to have a cross burning on top of a nearby hill who wanted to advertise their meeting in the school building then, because “I couldn’t discriminate” I would have to allow them to do so. My logic and knowledge of relevant law was as impeccable as my understanding of what was being said in the community was naïve. But the posters came down and there was no delegation in my office. This time, though, I did have to explain myself at the next meeting of the School Board. They seemed to accept my logic and legal knowledge. Unfortunately, among the encyclopedia of things I “didn’t know about territory” was that the President of the School Board, whom I will call “Merle,” was a lay Baptist preacher.
Soon “Merle” began showing up at the school complex several times a week at different times of the day going into and out of the buildings. Since my office was on the same grounds as the school buildings I assumed he would drop in on me at some time. I was wrong. He would come, visit for a while and leave without saying anything to me. This went on for a few weeks until one day I left my office, intercepted him and asked if he would please come to my office for a talk. When he came in I shut the door to my office and asked him basically, “What’s up with all these visits?” He said he was checking up, he’d been “hearing some things.” When I asked him what he’d been hearing he just said, “Oh, things.” His visits continued for another few weeks. Obviously I was beginning to feel crosshairs centered on the back of my head. Although the Board had already renewed my contract for a third year the writing on the wall was becoming clear. My days as their superintendent were numbered. If I held the Board to their contract and stayed for a third year it would be a miserable year. After thinking things over for several days I wrote a “Letter of Resignation,” got on the phone and asked “Merle” if he would kindly meet me for lunch at a place near where he worked. He reluctantly agreed.
After eating a bit of lunch I pulled my “death-knell” letter out of my coat pocket and told “Merle” what it was. I told him that I would give it to him then and there provided he would “call his dogs off.” He bristled at my describing what he’d been doing as similar to a pack of dogs chasing a fox but after venting his anger a bit he agreed to quit “hounding” me provided that I would call a meeting with him, myself and a delegation of teachers to announce to all of them that I had tendered my resignation. I took that as his asking for me to humiliate myself in public, yet it seemed to be the best option I had. That meeting was held the following day and for the remaining few months of that school year I was the lamest of lame ducks. The following weeks passed uneventfully. I mailed resume’s to several school districts who had probably fired their superintendent and were now looking for someone else and after a few weeks was chosen to “lead” a different school system. I discovered after a few more years as a superintendent that in the smaller school districts of Missouri becoming a superintendent was like joining in a game of “Musical Chairs.”
I also discovered that there are two kinds of “leaders.” There are visionaries who see ideals to be pursued, who then get in front and try to inspire and lead. They tend to be “shot out of the saddle” with monotonous regularity. Then there are those who carefully find out where the people they are supposed to lead want to go and then “run around and get it front of them,” but always checking to see if he is leading them where they want to go.” Those are the ones who grow old gracefully and retire after dozens of years in the same office.