Opinion
School & District Management Opinion

Superintendents Have Weathered a Lot of Vitriol This Year. What Have We Learned?

There was no good playbook for running a district during a catastrophe
By Matthew Montgomery — July 16, 2021 2 min read
A person walks from a vast empty space towards a team of people.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

As I reflect on leading during the pandemic, I am reminded of a scene from the historical drama “The Crown.” In a fictionalized exchange between Queen Elizabeth II and then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the queen cautions Thatcher about making enemies. The prime minister responds with the following poem by the 19th-century Scottish poet and journalist Charles Mackay, the author of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, an early study of crowd psychology:

You have no enemies, you say?
Alas! my friend, the boast is poor;
He who has mingled in the fray
Of duty, that the brave endure,
Must have made foes!
If you have none,
Small is the work that you have done.
You’ve hit no traitor on the hip,
You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip,
You’ve never turned the wrong to right,
You’ve been a coward in the fight.

I’ve let the words marinate in my mind. Of course, we all like to see ourselves hitting traitors on the hip and dashing cups from perjured lips, but what did Mackay’s poem mean in the midst of the extraordinary COVID-19 crisis?

About This Series

Over the coming weeks, we will be rolling out 17 lessons from experienced district leaders who spent the last year leading from home. Learn more and see the full collection of lessons.

I was fortunate to lead a small district that returned to full-day in-person classes in August 2020. What about my colleagues?

Have district leaders ever experienced the level of vitriol we have seen this past year from opponents of school building closures? Some certainly did during the desegregation wars in the second half of the 20th century. But in the years since, I’m not sure we’ve seen the scale of bitterness that superintendents and boards have faced when dealing with COVID-19 school reopening decisions. I have heard of fellow district leaders who have been verbally attacked, physically threatened, and harassed. Colleagues across the country have weathered hurricane-level storms throughout the year as they fought in the best interest of their students.

What became clear to me was that whatever the merits of Mackay’s measure of courage during normal times, it could not hold up during large-scale, life-and-death crises.

As we faced a 21st-century version of extraordinary delusions and the madness of crowds, our measure of success was not the enemies we made but the fellowship we created. Superintendents found we needed to collaborate with trusted colleagues. We had to acknowledge there was no “playbook” for running a district amid a nationwide catastrophe. We quickly realized if we were not taking care of ourselves through friendship, family, exercise, and mediation or prayer, we were not going to make it.

Although none of us volunteered for it, we served as pioneers. And I would argue that the painful lessons we learned daily as we struggled to put one foot in front of the other offer a future text on leadership. Superintendents have banded together locally, regionally, and nationally to troubleshoot problems of practice that none of us could have imagined a year and a half ago. While the discussions of pragmatic approaches to the pandemic and its impact on schools were invaluable, the social-emotional support among our peers was perhaps the most useful of all.

There’s no doubt about it. To lead, we must make courageous decisions. We must “hit the traitor on the hip” and “dash the cup from perjured lips.” But in life-and-death situations, district leaders must lean on the best counsel available. We must collect the best data we can find and remain focused on the public purpose of our institutions and the values that sustain us.

Complete Collection

Superintendents discuss ideas at a roundtable.
Vanessa Solis/Education Week and Getty Images

Related Tags:

Coverage of leadership, summer learning, social and emotional learning, arts learning, and afterschool is supported in part by a grant from The Wallace Foundation, at www.wallacefoundation.org. Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Science Webinar
Making Science Stick: The Engaging Power of Hands-On Learning
How can you make science class the highlight of your students’ day while
achieving learning outcomes? Find out in this session.
Content provided by LEGO Education
Teaching Profession Webinar Key Insights to Elevate and Inspire Today’s Teachers
Join this free half day virtual event to energize your teaching and cultivate a positive learning experience for students.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Student Achievement Webinar
Student Success Strategies: Flexibility, Recovery & More
Join us for Student Success Strategies to explore flexibility, credit recovery & more. Learn how districts keep students on track.
Content provided by Pearson

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School & District Management Do Students Suffer When a Superintendent Leaves? A New Study Has an Answer
A new study is the first in a while to explore how students fare academically when there's turnover in the district's top office.
5 min read
A man places his hand on top of his head as he looks up at an upwardly pointing arrow turning downward as it turns a corner.
iStock/Getty Images
School & District Management What Latino Superintendents Say It Will Take to Grow Their Ranks
Three Latino superintendents talked about the direct and indirect paths to building a pipeline of future district leaders of color.
4 min read
Vector image of many professionals, diversity, highlighting hispanic.
Liz Yap/Education Week and iStock/Getty
School & District Management Opinion Your School Needs a Teacher-Mentorship Program
We all know how critical the first few years of teaching are. Here's how to set teachers up for success.
Pamela Slifer
4 min read
Mentorship development of young teachers. School leaders make the teaching profession more sustainable by developing a robust mentoring program in their school.
Vanessa Solis/Education Week via Canva
School & District Management School Leaders Rush to Manage Deportation Fears
School and district leaders describe a chaotic time amid changes to federal immigration policies.
9 min read
A line of school children with obscured faces board a school bus on their way to school.
E+/Getty