ABSTRACT
In Hillsdale, an elected board of school trustees hires the superintendent. These trustees are almost always affluent professionals.1 The average tenure of appointed superintendents nationally is 2.5 years (Glass, Bjork, & Bruner, 2000), although these authors admit this figure depends on who measures it and how it is measured. In Hillsdale, one superintendent lasted almost two decades; another’s 3-year contract was terminated in his second year. An interim superintendent had a 2-year contract renewed for a third year when a successor was not found, and an acting superintendent was appointed another year for the same reason. Summaries of interviews with the latter two as well as two assistant superintendents are included in this chapter. First, I provide an overview of school politics based on inspected documents (e.g., newspaper articles, editorials, letters to the editor; school records; school board minutes), a dissertation about central administration when Edwards was in office (Hutson, 1978), interviews with school personnel, and copies of my own communication with the school trustees and administrators. This admittedly sketchy history provides the background for the time just proceeding the formal data collection for this book.
