By Diane Petryk
When Shikellamy Superintendent Alan Lonoconus left for a new district earlier this month, he may have sparked a trend in the Valley.
Milton Area schools could lose their superintendent if the Manheim Central School District near Lancaster gives its top administrative job to William Clark tonight. He is one of three finalists there. Meanwhile, Mifflinburg Superintendent Barry Tomasetti is reportedly eyeing a post elsewhere. He said he will have something to say about that when the school board meets Dec. 8.
“There are quite a few openings every year,” said Lewisburg Area School District Superintendent Mark DiRocco. “I get calls and letters every year wanting me to apply for a job or telling me about openings.”
The number varies from one or two a year to as many as 10, he said.
Superintendents are in shorter supply than in the past, according to Jim Buckheit, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators.
Well over one-third of the superintendents in the state’s 500 school districts are nearing retirement age, he said.
“Fewer people are applying when there are openings,” he said. “We don’t know why.”
Frederick Johnson, superintendent at Selinsgrove, thinks it’s because “not many people do what we do.”
“Some may say superintendents are a dime a dozen,” Johnson said, “but the job is really unique.”
Not every principal is a good candidate for superintendent either, he said. While the jobs are loosely coupled — both serving education — they are dramatically different. A superintendent, he said, is responsible for everything in the district, including curriculum, money, personnel, policies, programs, promotion and transportation.
“You’re it,” he said.
Educators 15 to 20 years ago would have viewed a superintendency as the pinnacle of their educational careers, said Jay Goldman, editor of The School Administrator Magazine, published by the American Association of School Administrators. Now, they are happy to remain a principal or curriculum director or the equivalent.
That’s because being a superintendent “is probably the hottest kitchen in public life in America,” Goldman said. “It’s a can’t-win situation.”
The needs of children attending school are greater than they’ve ever been, he said, and a lot more people view public education as the answer to many societal issues beyond learning.
DiRocco added that there’s no due process at the end of a superintendents’ contract, which is rarely for more than five years. “The board can say ‘thank-you for your time, we’re going with someone else’ and that’s it,” he said. “A principal can lose his job, but he’s more insulated. There has to be documentation of the reasons for the termination, and he’s entitled to a hearing.”
DiRocco has been Lewisburg’s superintendent for eight years and is in his fourth year of a five-year contract. He said he’s not thinking of moving on.
“But you never know when you might get that one phone call that may just turn your head,” he added.
When one feels the need to take on more challenges, that might be the time to change, he said.
He added: “Every one of us has to take a step back and ask, ‘Am I still able to be effective in my current role?’
“ ‘Have I done as much as I can here and would it be good for the district for someone else to come here with a fresh set of eyes?’ ”
More money would be attractive, but is never the prime motivator, he said.
Tomasetti, who is in his 11th year as superintendent at Mifflinburg, is in the second year of a five-year contract.
He, too, has been getting calls every year from school board search consultants. But, he said, he does not have to look for a new challenge. The job, he said, is always challenging.
“Everything changes all the time,” he said. “It’s not boring, and I don’t get burned out. It’s exciting and exhilarating.”
The Susquehanna Valley pays its superintendents competitively in relation to the cost of living in the area, DiRocco said, but higher salaries are available for those willing to move.
With a five-year contract for $200,000 per year, Lonoconus nearly doubled his $110,128 Shikellamy School District salary by moving to the Great Valley School District in Malvern, Chester County. Moreover, reported the Daily Local News of Chester County, according to the contract, he will receive a 2 percent annual salary increase upon completion of satisfactory yearly performance. By the year 2014, he will be earning $220,814 if he is granted the 2 percent increase every year.
Johnson called it the peachiest superintendent’s job in the commonwealth.
Securing a high salary toward the end of one’s career might be the goal of those superintendents in Pennsylvania who have their retirement income in mind, DiRocco said. The state bases one’s retirement pay on an average of the highest three years of salary, he said, within a cap.
“The highest years’ pay will then make a difference for the rest of one’s life,” he said.
In Selinsgrove, Johnson, in the second year of a five-year contract, after one three-year and one five-year contract previously, is the Valley’s highest paid superintendent at an effective $129,497 per year. Johnson is paid $142,296, but pays for his own health care, which costs $12,800. DiRocco earns $122,000. Daniel Sheaffer, of Warrior Run, earns $115,824; Tomasetti, $113,000; Wesley Knapp, of Midd-West, $110,000; Susan Bickford, of Danville, $109,009.
Bickford was hired in 2007 and given a three-year contract. Sheaffer was hired in 2003 for five years and has since been given a new three-year contract. Knapp signed a three-year contract, and is finishing up his first year.
Goldman said the mean salary for a superintendent in the United States is $155,634. In the geographical region that includes Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Delaware, it’s $166,513.
In districts with 300 to 2,499 students, which most closely parallels the situation in the Valley, the average superintendent earns $114,500. The data comes from Educational Research Service of Alexandria, Va.
Turnover is pretty rapid, Goldman said. “And what you’re seeing in Pennsylvania is not any different from other parts of the country. The only difference in Pennsylvania is that there are many more small school districts. They’re organized by boroughs and townships. Other places, they’re more countywide.”
Johnson also said decisions to stay or go should not be made based on salary alone.
“If you have a challenging board of education, that wants to micro-manage everything, there’s no amount of money that’s worth that,” he said. “That can make you an old person very, very quickly.”
“School boards are a lot more politicized now,” Goldman added. “The people running them have interests that are a little more narrow than the public good for K-12 education.”
That said, it’s nice to bump your salary up. “We have some very talented superintendents in this area,” Johnson said. “They could go anywhere they wanted and name their price.”
To combat high turnover, Buckheit said, school districts competing for superintendents need to make the job attractive, pay a competitive salary and offer the support the candidate will need to be successful.
