Two significant nationwide reports about how school leaders view their jobs and find time for the myriad of responsibilities inherent in them have recently been released. Public Agenda, with support from the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds, surveyed approximately 1800 superintendents and principals in the summer of 2001 about "the day-to-day realities these administrators encounter as they shape and lead good schools." A second study, sponsored by the National Association of Secondary School Principals and underwritten by the Milken Family Foundation, surveyed nearly 3400 principals about "how they spend their days and their desire to manage less and lead more." In both cases, lack of time and excessive paperwork were cited as the two greatest impediments to attending to their responsibilities as leaders of learning.

In an effort to ascertain if these findings hold true for Iowa administrators, 45 of the 51 elected leaders to the School Administrators of Iowa (SAI) Representative Council were interviewed in the fall of 2001 about their perspectives on the school administrator's role in improving student achievement. The results of those interviews are summarized in this white paper.

Executive Summary

Superintendents and principals statewide voice enthusiasm for their roles as instructional leaders but say their efforts will be impeded by significant barriers and challenges. The traditional ways the job of "school administrator" has been conceptualized will need to change, and significant societal and systemic issues will need to be addressed.

Enthusiasm for the Work
The superintendents and principals interviewed for this study are committed to finding ways to be instructional leaders. They know the research about leadership being the key to increased levels of student learning, and are confident that they know what needs to be done. One principal said, "I love this work. I don't expect the public to understand all the demands of the job. I just want to do what's best for kids." Another said, "I get to work with the most dedicated people. I supervise 55 staff members, and although that gets really crazy at times, I know they're all committed to helping our students." A superintendent remarked: "One of my most important jobs is to help my principals find the time to be leaders of learning. It can be done. It's just finding the ways to do it."

Dispositions Necessary To Sustain Effort Over Time
Nearly every respondent indicated that administrators need to be resilient to meet the on-going challenges of the job. Most remain positive in their roles and optimistic about their influence on young peoples' lives. Consistently, they mentioned the need for high levels of energy, enthusiasm, and hope to carry them through the tough times.

Barriers to Being Instructional Leaders
Although cautioning that any response to the question, "What are the barriers or challenges to you being an instructional leader in your district?" might be perceived as "whining" or "complaining," these 45 administrators did reflect on the difficulties that present themselves as they change the focus to less management and more leadership. The sentiment expressed most often can be summarized by this quote form one principal: "I want to be an instructional leader. There just doesn't seem to be the time to do it well. Other tasks push instructional leadership off the front page."

The 10 most frequently cited barriers/challenges cited by these respondents are listed in decreasing order of frequency. Each general category includes a sample of comments made by school leaders related to that issue.

Paperwork (especially associated with Special Education)
Paperwork, evaluations, reports for the district and state, IEP meetings and reports occupy most of my time.
There's a growing special education population. We need consistency.
Can't get to the paperwork until the kids and teachers are gone.

Meeting the non-instructional needs of students (serving as a social agency)
The needs that families have now are different from what they used to be.
We become the parents when they abdicate responsibility.
Dealing with custody issues and safety issues takes up more of my time than anybody could imagine.

Management tasks
This is a job of interruptions.
Dealing with interruptions: misbehavior, parent calls, meetings, drop-ins takes up a lot of my time.
I have to spend so much time on administrative and day-to-day fires.

Community commitments and expectations
The public has no idea of the hours, stress and pressure it takes to do this job.
Community expectations have to change, like roaming the sidelines at football games.
The community expects me to be everywhere.
I've stopped coming to work at 5 a.m. now. I'm not able to keep those kinds of hours anymore.

Lack of funding
We need authority at the building level to spend dollars.
Lack of funding permeates the culture of the school.
The current financial state we're in means there's no money to do what needs to be done.

Being forced to "wear too many hats"
I have too many people to properly supervise and evaluate.
Having to wear a hundred hats in a small district makes this job very difficult.
I couldn't do everything this job expects of me, and in addition, I have small children at home.

Having a legislature that doesn't understand our roles and needs
Local control is gone. Even though we voice it, we've lost our way.
The legislature doesn't understand my work.
Some legislators have no respect for school administrators and what they do.

Evening activities
I have to supervise every other activity for the school and that adds up to three or four nights a week during the winter.
I supervise every home event (by choice and by expectation).
I'm expected to attend all home events.

Discipline problems
I try to get in and out of classrooms, but discipline takes time.
Handling of discipline problems takes so much time!
I don't get in the classrooms as much as I'd like because I'm the sounding board for discipline concerns.

Testing/accountability/DE requirements
Standardized testing takes away from instruction.
Where will we find time to evaluate under the teacher compensation bill requirements?
It's tough to find time for state mandates and paperwork.

Number of Hours on the Job
Each administrator interviewed for this study was asked to provide a conservative estimate of the number of hours per week that they work, including weekend time and receiving calls at home. The average number of hours was 62 hours per week. This is the same number of hours reported in the NASSP nationwide study.

Recommendations
It is clear that the responsibilities of school administrators will have to be restructured if adequate time is to be given to their role as instructional leaders. Expectations from staff, students, parents, supervisors, board members and patrons will need to be redefined, and, concomitantly, school administrators must be willing to re-examine their priorities, ability to delegate duties and embrace professional development opportunities that emphasize instructional leadership as the system moves into expectations for more accountability for student achievement.

Reexamining the job expectations may also serve to diminish the exorbitant number of hours that school administrators are currently spending on the job. This should increase the desirability of the job and attract more educators into the field of administration who as of now have not considered moving into administration as a career goal.

There also exists the reality of a changing family structure and the more acute social, emotional and economic needs faced by children than ever before. This is a problem the educational community alone cannot fix. But it impacts student achievement in many ways, and is a significant barrier to equal access for all to the promise of public education. Iowa cannot afford to ignore the systemic and deleterious effects of poverty -- both economic and social -- on our state's young people.

Study conducted by Dr. Troyce Fisher, former Executive Director, School Administrators of Iowa, September-December, 2001.