24 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Explain Like I’m Five: What Do Superintendents Actually Do?
Budgeting is the big one. Typically budget for each school in the district, teacher and admin salaries, makes sure bills are paid. Transportation. My district of like 3 schools had a $28k electricity bill last month.
They also act as a liaison to the school board. So, they take whatever the principal and admin share with them, and they share with the school board. They facilitate conversations to address school board needs or concerns. In my area we have open school board meetings monthly and it's live on Facebook.
The school board approved principal, staff, and faculty appointments each year with the super acting as liaison (collecting info and presenting to the board).
They request funding from the state and federal government. Metaphorically speaking, think of all the superintendents in a meeting with the state education department. They're all asking for more money and have to justify their needs.
Once they get the money, they help determine which schools it goes to.
They process teacher certifications and recertifications. Set curriculum standards to be implemented in the schools.
HR.
They probably do other things I'm not aware of.
Comment by teach1throwaway at 09/03/2025 at 15:06 UTC
13 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Building expansions, building maintenance, ensuring number of positions, both certified and classified, allocating funds and how to pay for different programs across all schools, monitoring educational trends and ensuring that all schools are following state and federal laws, etc.
Comment by somewhenimpossible at 09/03/2025 at 16:19 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Budgeting SUCKS.
I went to local government to get administrative experience. My manager spends at least half the year with the budget then an endless month presenting/trying to get the budget approved. This includes reviewing the last budget, reviewing prepared documents to help analyze trends and current needs, making projections for infrastructure, people, and asset management, then filing requests for council to review and negotiate and approve any increases or major movement of money, and then they have to go back and change it according to councils recommendations and wished then re-present it for approval. I’ve seen managers handle the most insane questions from elected officials on camera in a semi public meeting. At that moment, I was glad to be a middle manager who helped with the documents and had morning to do with reviewing or presenting.
Why are you asking for nearly triple the dollars in this category?
Because inflation has tripled the price of the supplies we need to do the actions in that category?
Can you get me the numbers to prove that?
Yeah, that’s on page 12 in the inflation report.