A public school superintendent’s job can be a thankless one. Dealing with the often conflicting priorities and needs of government bureaucracy, taxpayers, educators, parents and students is difficult – even in the best of times. When times are tough, money is tight and increasing pressure for top performance is intensifying, the demands on a superintendent often border on the impossible.
Consider the difficulties inherent in their work. Superintendents must interact with and answer to politically motivated elected officials who control the pocketbook. They must satisfy parents, teachers and administrators who often have preconceived notions – some right, some wrong – of what a school system and a classroom should be. And they must create policies, curricula and atmosphere that are conducive to learning for students whose interests and abilities are anything but uniform. And they must do it all on a tight budget.
Measuring the performance of those in such demanding jobs is never easy. One of several methods to evaluate a school superintendent is to seek an assessment from his or her peers. Those who work in the same field and who face the same challenges are in a unique position to gauge performance. If that is the case, Vickie Reed, the superintendent of Murray County schools, is doing an admirable job.
Reed recently received the Jim Puckett Outstanding Educator Award given annually by the Georgia Association of Educational Leaders. The award, which honors significant achievement in the field of educational leadership, is a notable honor for a professional educator. It is a tribute, too, to the system and to the people she serves.
A high school dropout who later earned a doctorate, Reed was honored for implementing programs that helped schools meet budget shortfalls without impacting student performance, and for creation of innovative programs that included opening a night school for students who have to work during normal school hours. Her work has not gone unnoticed.