In today’s supercharged educational climate, I wonder why anyone would want to be a superintendent of schools. Sure, it’s where the big bucks are when it comes to educational profession jobs, but, oh, what a price they pay.

Just ask former Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver of the Lehighton Area School District, whose contract was terminated after new school board members were seated in December. The public reason given had to do with the alleged improper terminology regarding Cleaver’s contract and how it was renewed, but, honestly, the issues went a lot deeper than that, which has led Cleaver to sue the district and the seven board members who voted to terminate his contract.

You also can ask John Rushefski, superintendent of the Jim Thorpe Area School District, whose contract will not be renewed when it expires in June. Rushefski has been in his leadership position since only 2019 when he was hired after the board did not renew the contract of the previous superintendent, Dr. Brian Gasper. A change in board of education personnel did not bode well for Rushefski since he was viewed as someone who was not forcefully behind the board’s objectives, especially when it came to cutting costs.

In the Pleasant Valley School District in Monroe County, it’s been a revolving door; Dr. James Konrad is the third superintendent since 2017. Two of the area superintendents are relatively new - Dr. Jodi Frankelli of Palmerton, who came on board in 2020, and Daniel Malloy of Weatherly, hired last fall. The longest serving area superintendent is Tamaqua’s Raymond Kinder, nearly six years, while Northern Lehigh’s and Northwestern Lehigh’s superintendents have been in their jobs just about four years. According to the state school boards association, the average tenure of a superintendent in Pennsylvania is between five and six years.

Looking throughout Pennsylvania, you will find similar stories of attrition unfolding because of retirements and others unwilling to go through the current educational meat grinder.

To some degree, I vicariously lived the life of a superintendent through the eyes of my late brother-in-law, Dr. Larry Macaluso, a native of the New Columbus section of Nesquehoning, and superintendent of the Red Lion Area School District in York County for 17 years. Happily, he had a much more enduring relationship with his board of education, so much so that it named a newly built elementary school in his honor at the time of his retirement.

It’s hard to imagine that a superintendent is in this pressure-packed job for the money. The average superintendent’s salary in Pennsylvania is $168,232 as of March 29, 2022, but the range typically falls between $137,421 and $202,995. Salary ranges can vary widely depending on the size and location of the district, along with other important factors, including education, certification, additional skills, the number of years in the profession, etc.

In our five-county region of Carbon, Schuylkill, Monroe, Northampton and Lehigh counties, salaries range from a low of about $98,000 for the superintendent of the Panther Valley district (1,622 students) to a high of about $250,000 for Elizabeth Robison, superintendent of the Pocono Mountain district (8,900 students). She makes more than the new superintendent in the Allentown district (16,800 students), Dr. John Stanford, who earns about $230,000.

In today’s volatile educational environment, a superintendent must be more skillful and nimble than a circus tightrope walker in an attempt to satisfy the many constituencies within a district.

Let’s be clear about one major point: The school board hires the superintendent, so the nine-member board is his or her boss. To ignore such a fundamental fact can mean curtains for a superintendent - maybe not today or tomorrow because of contract stipulations, but you can count on a bad outcome somewhere down the road.

Despite this, we expect superintendents to be wise in the ways of education expertise and innovation, while many board members are not. We expect them to provide leadership and guidance to the board’s lay members. Years ago, boards often rubber-stamped whatever the superintendent wanted; today, not so much.

Just like in corporate America, when new owners take over, the CEO who had appeared to have been doing a fantastic job now falls out of favor with the new owners. A lot of that is going on now with changes in the composition of school boards.

School superintendents function as CEOs by directing and managing a district. They oversee all aspects of the district’s operations, from setting objectives and near- and long-term goals, making sure a budget is developed that will fly with the board and the public, and, generally, making sure the educational process is humming along like a well-oiled machine.

In between these broader responsibilities, a superintendent is expected to be the face of the district to the public and the rest of the educational community, show up at school functions and athletic contests, visit schools to understand the educational product being delivered, put out the numerous daily brush fires that occur, and, very importantly, know how and when to delegate responsibilities.

There are many other duties, but, as you can see, this is not a 9-to-5 job, not even close. As my brother-in-law always said: “If something goes wrong, the buck stops with me, whether I like it or not.”

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.