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Perspectives on Leadership: Race, Gender and the Superintendency—A National Study 203

superintendents, Sharp, Malone, Walter and Supley (2000) suggested that “job placement may
tend to be influenced by the location of the district” (p.5). The virtual absence of women in
the middle group of districts with 3,000 to 24,999 students could be a determinant in the low
numbers of females in the superintendent position owing to the belief that women do not have
the financial or manager background to handle a district of this size. Women are in a majority
in heading large districts of over 25,000 students and are in the majority in small rural
districts. (Sharp et al., 2000, p. 5). The female superintendents in rural districts offered a
contradiction to the perception that women are unable to handle finance and construction
since rural-district roles are often multi-dimensional with the requirement to handle it all. As
one respondent elaborated, “We are too small for extra staff. I must do personnel, instruction,
budget, facilities, public relations. It is fulfilling and very difficult.”

Administrator experience

When queried about previous administrative experience before obtaining the
superintendency, an overwhelming number of participants, 44%, replied that they had served
as an elementary school principal; 19% had come from a previous central office position and
13% had been a high school principal (see Table 3). These numbers seem to imply that more
districts are recruiting school leaders with building level leadership experience, as in this case
a representation of 57% of all respondents..

Table 3. Female Superintendents’ Previous Administrative Positions Held N = 423.

Prior Position Percent

Elementary Principal 45%

Assistant Elementary Principal 4%

JH/MS Principal 10%

JH/MS Assistant Principal 4%

HS Principal 13%

HS Assistant Principal 2%

Central Office 19%

Other 4%

Because an unusually high number of respondents reported serving as an elementary
school principal before moving into the superintendency, we performed a Chi-Square
“goodness-of-fit” test to determine if there was a significant difference between the observed
frequency of responses to this category as compared to the expected frequency of responses.
The computed chi-square statistic was 2817.775 and found to be significant, p = .000. This
finding gave credence to the previously stated implication that current school boards are
filling their district leadership positions with instructional leaders. While this could be an
important career path to the superintendency in a K-8 district, the elementary principal
experience may also be a subtle barrier to the superintendency. Some studies have indicated