“I accepted it, because I didn’t know any better,” said Tieu, who didn’t find encouragement from her own Vietnamese family either. “My father was like, ‘Oh, I’m so surprised that they selected you to be the principal.’ ”

A decade later, Tieu has not only been an assistant principal and principal, she’s now in charge of student support services for the Houston Independent School District — the eighth-largest school system in the U.S. But as an Asian woman and a single mother, she still feels pressure to prove herself in a male-dominated field.

“I spend double the time to make sure that everything I produce is 100% — nothing less,” she said.

The comment about Tieu’s height — and job prospects — is among the anecdotes district and state leaders shared as part of a first-of-its-kind of women serving in high-level school positions. Conducted by , a 300-member national network, the results show that despite ascending to senior roles in school systems and state departments, the vast majority of female leaders experience bias and think often about quitting. Over 80% of the 110 women who responded, from 27 states, said they feel they have to watch how they dress, speak and act because they are in the spotlight as senior leaders.

“I have found myself in high-powered meetings where men in leadership roles do not even look at me, but instead address my male colleagues,” said AngĂ©lica Infante-Green, Rhode Island education commissioner and a Women Leading Ed board member. “In a world where traditional notions of leadership have been predominantly shaped by men, there exists a profound need for diversity in representation.”

The survey, one expert said, comes at a time when districts could benefit from strengths many women bring to the table.

“Women who come up through this pipeline have often been elementary school principals and that sometimes precludes them from being selected as superintendents,” said Rachel White, a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, assistant professor. She launched , a research center, last summer to improve data collection on school system leaders. It’s common, she said, for school boards to view high school principals, who are , as more authoritarian or to prefer someone with a background in finance. “The type of leadership we need right now around family and student engagement and curriculum and instruction — elementary school principals really get that right.” 

But many women leaders say they face a double standard. 

“When a man in leadership takes time to coach his child’s sports team, he is applauded,” Infante-Green said. “If I choose to attend my daughter’s dance recital over a meeting, I am judged much differently.”

One leader quoted in the report said she was told to wear a skirt instead of pants to a presentation so she didn’t “come off as intimidating.” , Hispanic and Asian-American women were even more likely to feel pressure related to their behavior — 55%, compared with 36% for white women. One Black leader’s colleagues said the way she greeted students with “What’s up” made them uncomfortable because she was “speaking Ebonics.”

Tieu, in Houston, said students are often surprised to see a minority woman, especially an Asian woman, in leadership. 

“I want to show these young ladies that there’s nothing wrong with having aspirations,” she said. “There are going to be moments in time when you have to overcome barriers, but be smart and learn from it.”

The survey results build on the conducted by ILO Group, a women-owned firm focused on education policy and leadership. Nationally, over 20% of the nation’s 500 largest school districts saw turnover at the top, according to the 2023 results. Among women, the rate was slightly higher — 26%.

The most recent analysis also showed that even with a modest increase in the number appointed to superintendent positions, women still represent less than a third of those leading school districts. Women, however, make up 80% of the teacher workforce and more than half of school principals. 

Julia Rafal-Baer, CEO of Women Leading Ed and ILO, called it a “glass cliff,” and said when women reach higher ranks, they“nearly universally experience bias that impacts their ability to do their job, how they feel about their work and their overall well-being.”

Sixty percent of women leaders said they think about quitting due to stress, and of those, three-quarters said they contemplate leaving on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Loren Widmer, director of student services for the Affton School District, outside St. Louis, left a neighboring system after unsuccessful efforts to advance into administration.

“I really felt like the only potential way to move ahead in that district was to be part of the good old boys club,” she said. “If you didn’t go to school there, play on the football team and come up through the ranks, there was no chance that you would progress.”

That became clear to her in 2017 when she was in line for an assistant principal job. The district offered her a 9 a.m. interview on a Friday, the same morning she was scheduled to have a C-section. She asked for an alternative time — even a virtual interview at noon the same day of her son’s birth — but the official turned her down. The position later went to a man.

‘Among all these men’

The new survey follows a that Rafal-Baer initiated on LinkedIn, asking women leaders to share some of the worst comments they’ve heard along their “professional journey.” Some of the nation’s top education leaders weighed in.

“A 
 colleague said (in front of the others), ‘You must be really proud to be the only woman among all these men,’ and then squeezed my shoulder a little longer than anyone needed,“ recalled Carolyne Quintana, a deputy chancellor for the New York City schools.

Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, shared a comment she heard as a new mom. 

“An older male colleague bitterly complained he wished he’d gotten a three-month vacation after I got back from a horrible, miserable, painful maternity leave,” she wrote. 

And Daylene Long, CEO of a STEM education company, posted that someone told her, “Being competitive is not an attractive trait in a woman.”

‘You don’t have to choose’

But some leaders also see signs of progress. 

In Affton, Widmer’s district, half of the top-level staff and four of the five principals are women. She thinks the support women feel contributes to the district’s stability. 

“You don’t have to choose between staying home with your sick kids or leading a department,” Widmer said. “You can do both.”

And in the early months of the pandemic, Infante-Green participated in daily with then-Gov. Gina Raimondo and Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, the former state health director. A mother even sent the commissioner a card with Superwoman on it as a thank you for inspiring her daughter. 

“In that moment, it dawned on me that our presence together at those news conferences was more than just symbolic; it was a powerful statement of solidarity and resilience,” she said. “It sent a positive message that in Rhode Island, leadership knows no gender boundaries.”

But 15 months later, the superintendent in Gainesville was after the district defied Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s ban on school mask mandates. DeSantis appointed a board member who tipped the majority 3-2 against her. She was the district’s sixth leader in close to a decade.

“My district will have a hard time explaining the turnover rate of superintendents and convincing the right person to pull up roots and move to our community,” she said. “The governor’s culture war has impacted the work environment so negatively that a school superintendent would be working to push back a very strong current of low morale.”

Far from being an isolated incident, her termination is part of a COVID wave of superintendent firings from the to . The charged atmosphere is a sign of the times, as toxic national and state politics filter down to local school districts.

A recent poll showed a clear decline in parents’ opinions toward their local schools. Those on both sides of the culture war have turned out in force at school board meetings — sometimes calling for superintendents to. But the issues have not been limited to closed schools or classroom controversies. Even run-of-the-mill decisions, like renovating buildings or replacing staff, have toppled careers. With alarming national test scores released Monday and pandemic relief funds running out in two years, the temperature is only likely to increase.

“We’re about to hit a different level of vitriol,” said Julia Rafal-Baer, co-founder of ILO Group, a consulting firm that helps future district chiefs find jobs. “We’re asking our leaders to be a sponge for divisiveness.”

‘Taking a risk’

The job of leading school systems has always been tricky. As they navigate complex bureaucracies and clashing constituencies from parents to teachers unions, superintendents are paid well (average salaries are in the ) but frequently burn out.

What’s changing, according to Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, is that now “we’re seeing a whole range of issues migrate into districts that in the past were somewhat buffered.”

Recent and point to a general increase in superintendent turnover, but none has directly examined the spike in terminations. In conversations with district leaders and their advocates, however, many say the phenomenon is inescapable.

Kevin Brown, executive director of the 3,800-member Texas Association of School Administrators, said in his 31 years in the profession, he’s never seen more superintendents fired than he has in the past two years. And Steve McCammon, executive director of the National Superintendents Roundtable, a 100-member network, said it’s becoming common for members to be fired “without cause” — legal language that allows school boards to part ways with their chief executives without offering a reason, a hearing or other elements of due process. Previously, he recalled only one instance in the past 20 years. 

“The stories are out there all over the place,” he said. “Everything has become a political decision.”

To get a sense of the scope of the issue, ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ reviewed news clips detailing nearly 40 no-cause firings or forced resignations in 26 states since the beginning of the pandemic. ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ also sent an informal survey to leadership networks, including the National Superintendents Roundtable, the Council of Great City Schools, Chiefs for Change, ILO Group and Education Counsel, another consulting organization. Out of 70 superintendents who responded, 15 said they’ve seen several district leaders fired or forced to resign since the pandemic began. Twenty said there have been many more. Nineteen worry they might be next.

“The role of the superintendent has become a punching bag 
 during the pandemic and the attacks are personal,” one wrote. 

Another said: “I have board members running to remove me, and I run a very strong and high-performing school district. It is a dark and sad time for superintendents.”

As in Alachua, debates over polarizing issues preceded firings in dozens of school systems across the country. 

Snapshot

A COVID Wave of Fired Superintendents

When school boards fire their leaders, it is seldom done with transparency. Payouts to superintendents and non-disclosure agreements typically mean the public doesn’t get the full story. The map reflects a sample of school superintendents fired — primarily without cause — since the start of the pandemic.

When conservatives took over the board in Spotsylvania, Virginia, last January, they , who was set to step down just five months later. The district was embroiled in debates over books with LGBTQ themes, with some board members calling for not only banning, but burning, library books they deemed “sexually explicit.” After banning several books, the district after a public outcry. 

In 2021, Kevin Purnell of Oregon’s was among a for simply complying with the law — in this case, a state mandate that students wear masks. The terminations prompted lawmakers to pass this year that protects superintendents from being removed for following laws. 

The perception that schools prolonged closures to protect teachers rather than serve students fueled a huge backlash from parents. Dozens of parents’ rights groups have sprung up since 2020, and Republicans have seized on the issue as a critical plank for upcoming midterm elections.

“School leadership failed students and catered to union agendas during the pandemic,” said Sharon McKeeman, founder of Let Them Breathe, which sued unsuccessfully over California’s mask mandate. McKeeman, who’s also in the Carlsbad Unified district, told ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ that “it’s time for leadership that will put students’ needs first and help them recoup the learning loss and social-emotional damage they incurred during school closures and COVID restrictions.”

Part of the problem in tracking the issue is that such firings are typically shrouded in secrecy. For ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ, Rafal-Baer of ILO Group analyzed the departures of 210 chiefs who vacated their positions in the nation’s 11 were fired. But based on news coverage, she suspects many more were forced to resign. Superintendents fired without cause often and agreements for everyone involved not to discuss the terms.

“We never hear the real story,” she said. “They legally can’t talk.” 

Issues over district management 

But Cheryl Watson-Harris, fired in April from her post as superintendent of the DeKalb County schools in metro Atlanta, refused to go quietly.

Her termination capped off a two-week media storm following the posting of a that exposed mold, crumbling ceilings and other safety hazards at the district’s oldest school. High school students shot the video after the board voted not to renovate the facility — an action she . 

Even before she walked into the job, Watson-Harris knew the district had a reputation for turmoil. Before they hired her, board members named former New York City schools Chancellor Rudy Crew as the sole finalist for the job, only to vote against hiring him two weeks later. for discrimination based on age and race, and the board later paid out a $750,000 settlement. Rafal-Baer of ILO Group said she even advised another candidate not to pursue the position.

Nonetheless, Watson-Harris, who previously served as second-in-charge under former New York City Chancellor Richard Carranza, hoped her status as an outsider would help her rise above the district’s troubled politics. It didn’t take long for controversy to find her.

She proposed that would require top deputies to reapply for their jobs in an effort to address what she felt was a lack of accountability over school improvement. She the district’s chief operating officer last year, according to local news reports, after an investigation found he bullied other employees and drank too much alcohol at a work conference. He , arguing that he was falsely accused of “a handful of minor violations” and that she retaliated against him for raising questions about accounting irregularities. 

In an interview, Watson-Harris acknowledged “spotty recordkeeping” in the district, one reason she brought in outside evaluators to review finances and was upgrading outdated systems for managing staff and operations.

The former employee died in a car accident in September near Detroit, according to police reports. His attorney declined to comment on the status of his lawsuit.

Board Chair Vickie Turner declined to answer questions about Watson-Harris’s termination. The other three board members who voted to fire her, along with the school district’s attorney, did not respond to requests for comment. 

“When you’re dealing with personnel matters such as this, you have to be very, very careful,” Turner said. “I don’t think it would be wise to speak to that, because we may have some things that are still not closed.” 

Watson-Harris’s firing shocked many in the community, even drawing a from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, who said the board chose “politics over students, families and educators.”

With just a month left in the school year, the board spent $25,000 to without her signature. 

“I could have closed out [the school year] and given people some stability,” Watson-Harris said.

Because she was fired without cause, Watson-Harris believes she was denied a chance to respond to the accusations against her. For that reason, she said, she’s refused to accept a $325,000 severance package and is considering legal action. 

After watching the district go through four leaders in three years, state Superintendent Richard Woods finds the volatility troubling.

“You cannot get any continuity of services and support,” he told ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ, adding that consistent leadership is needed to “have some forward growth.”

‘In the spotlight’ 

Such churn is becoming commonplace. In her review of the nation’s 500 largest school districts, Rafal-Baer found more than 20 have had two leadership changes since COVID’s arrival. 

Watson-Harris was both hired and fired during the pandemic. So was Florida’s Simon, who said she faced similar resistance from a board reluctant to challenge the status quo.

Alachua board member Tina Certain, who voted against Simon’s termination, said the former superintendent’s and creation of a teacher advisory committee that included non-union members likely contributed to discontent. 

“Every department I looked at had financial efficiency issues and basic management concerns — lots of ‘this is how we do things around here’ excuses,” Simon said.

That issue came to the fore when she raised questions about the that runs outdoor education programs. She found that scholarships meant for poor students were being awarded to those without financial need, including the child of a former superintendent on a six-figure salary. She — and shared with ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ â€” a text message between the camp’s director and a former staff member about scholarships given as a “thank you for being business partners.” 

An internal investigation of wrongdoing, but the district continues to push for of the camp. The director filed a against Simon, the district and the former camp staffer. He denied the allegations and said he didn’t violate policies because there weren’t any in place. His attorney didn’t respond to requests for comment.

But for DeSantis, it would appear that Simon’s vocal opposition to his COVID policies was the tipping point. “She went on the national news and put us in the spotlight in a very negative way,” Mildred Russell, the DeSantis appointee who cast the deciding vote to fire Simon, told ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ.

Simon now leads that backs board members and superintendents who push for equity and inclusion. She doubts she could find another superintendent job in the state. 

“I think every board in K-12 or higher education would be taking a risk of being in DeSantis’s crosshairs in the event they consider my employment,” she said. “We are asking for people to risk financial and professional stability.” 

The governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

DeSantis — who is setting the GOP’s agenda on education policy and is widely seen as a potential 2024 presidential contender — expanded his reach into nonpartisan school board elections this year, 30 candidates in 18 districts. The majority won their races or have moved to a November runoff. Several of the governor’s candidates were also backed by the conservative organization Moms for Liberty, a parents’ rights group, and the , which has spent over $2 million on school board races in several states.

The charged atmosphere nationally is producing leadership candidates who aren’t seasoned or politically astute enough to withstand the pressure, said Daniel Domenech, executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association.

“There’s no time to learn,” he said. “You’re going into battle now.” 

That’s why Alachua is holding off on looking for a new superintendent, said Certain, the board member.

“We’re not going to get anybody who is worth anything at this point because of the turnover,” she said.

That leaves Superintendent Susan Enfield balancing keeping athletic programs running — which requires students to test three times a week — against maintaining an adequate supply of kits for the test-to-stay program and students displaying symptoms.

“We have a few thousand [tests] right now,” she said. “At the rate we’re going through them, that’s not going to last us more than a couple weeks.”

On Wednesday, the Biden administration to address the demand, announcing it will send 5 million rapid and 5 million lab-based PCR tests to schools each month to support screening and test-to-stay programs, which allow students to remain in class after exposure.

During a surge, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency will organize testing sites in or near schools for students, staff and families. The new resources are in addition to the $10 billion for school-based testing released last year.

In Highline, and in districts across the country, the has been sagging under the weight of Omicron and increased testing protocols. Requirements that students test after the holidays, combined with test-to-stay procedures, have created fierce competition for kits at the same time similar mandates are being enacted in other parts of society. at testing facilities, sold-out stores and are contributing to that President Joe Biden hasn’t managed the need for testing as well as he handled the vaccine rollout.

Republicans, but also some Democrats, the administration’s response to the Omicron outbreak at a Senate committee meeting Tuesday, accusing top health officials of acting too late to make more tests available. 

“I’m frustrated we are still behind on issues as important to families as testing, and supporting schools,” Senate education Chair Patty Murray said during the hearing.

Biden is expected to discuss his “whole-of-government” response to the surge Thursday. According to the White House, the administration has been finalizing contracts with companies at-home tests through the Postal Service and completing work on a government website where people can order them. Starting Saturday, insurance companies will be required to cover the cost of at-home tests, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Monday.

But while distributing tests to everyone who wants one might be “admirable,” districts need a more targeted approach, said Julia Rafal-Baer, who recently left Chiefs for Change to launch ILO Group (for “in the life of”), where she consults with districts on pandemic recovery efforts.

Districts, she said, “need to count on a consistent supply of tests with a real focus now on those who are mildly symptomatic,” she said.

Even as they scramble to have enough tests on hand, educators are thinking ahead to a time when testing asymptomatic students won’t be necessary. Districts, Rafal-Baer said, need to begin looking at “shifting protocols” in order to keep schools open as more students get vaccinated. 

“Any kind of shutdown at this point is going backwards,” she said, “and it’s going backwards to a point that we know is devastating.”

For now, COVID testing is part of keeping schools open.

Mara Aspinall, an adviser to the Rockefeller Foundation and a biomedical diagnostics expert at Arizona State University, said that in 2020, commitments from the foundation and governors to purchase tests allowed manufacturers to accelerate production. 

Through the , rapid tests went directly to schools and nursing homes. The federal government’s of BINAXNow tests also ensured states and districts a dependable inventory.

But before the Delta variant, when cases were declining, demand for testing tapered off. Such fluctuations, Aspinall said, make it hard for “manufacturers to anticipate whether their product will be sold when it’s available, or whether it will sit in a warehouse and expire.”

, which makes BINAXNow, shut down a lab in June and then restarted production when the Delta variant drove up demand.

‘Can’t justify going remote’

Whether schools can back off testing and tracing asymptomatic students, however, is still a matter of considerable debate, especially at a time when positive cases are reaching all-time highs.

Florida officials last week said they would begin to those who are at higher risk for getting severely sick from COVID-19, which contradicts guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One infectious disease expert the switch as a “recipe for disaster.”

In the Cobb County Schools in Georgia, leaders said they would increase access to testing but no longer require , in keeping with new state guidelines. Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said contact tracing — tracking down all possible close contacts of a student who tests positive — has drained staff resources.

The district’s COVID was last updated Dec. 17, before the holiday break, but according to the county health department, community transmission is , with 2,657 cases per 100,000 residents. 

“Giving up on contact tracing feels one step closer to giving up entirely on any pretense of mitigation,” said Cobb parent Alan Seelinger, among those who have advocated for masks and remote learning during COVID surges. “Our continued pleas for the superintendent and school board majority to make our schools safer feel pointless.”

But to Ragsdale’s point, tracing takes up staff time when schools are already coping with shortages. Washington superintendent Enfield, a former high school English teacher who is one of two finalists for superintendent in San Diego, taught a sixth grade science class Monday. She’s also sent all central office staff members with teaching certificates to cover classrooms. 

With student absentee rates about 20 percent, Enfield said some teachers have pushed for remote learning, but as long as 80 percent of kids are coming to school, “I can’t justify going remote right now,” she said. 

In addition, some schools are severely short-staffed because teachers are sick. “If you have a critical mass of staff at school out, you’re not talking about remote learning, you’re talking about no learning,” she said.

Considering COVID risk

If districts see declining support for testing students without symptoms and not enough staff members to trace close contacts, they should make decisions based on the level of COVID risk in a school community, said Leah Perkinson, a manager at the Rockefeller Foundation.

Immunocompromised students, those in multigenerational households with essential workers and those in contact with many people on a daily basis should be prioritized for screening, she said.

“The risk that they come into the school with COVID is higher, the risk of them spreading to others is higher and the consequences of infection are more dire than they are for their non-immunocompromised peers,” she said.

Calls for updated guidance regarding COVID testing are also coming from health care providers. 

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and its PolicyLab last week released for K-12 schools that suggest possible testing for those with mild symptoms and discontinuing weekly testing for students and staff unless transmission is high — and even then, just on a voluntary basis.

“Our guidance goes further than that of CDC’s in allowing more exposed but asymptomatic children and staff to return to school and reducing staff burden for contact tracing and weekly testing of asymptomatic individuals,” according to the document.

Elizabeth Lolli, superintendent of Dayton, Ohio, schools, decided to partner with her county’s health department for testing to avoid overwhelming staff and drawing criticism from families over COVID protocols.

“There’s enough controversy to keep everybody away from the reason that we’re here — so we can focus on kids,” she said. 

But the district still requires students to get tested if they’ve been out sick, and drive-through lines at the at the Montgomery County fairgrounds stretch around the track, with waits up to an hour.

Before the most recent outbreak, some education leaders were also hearing administrators ask: “What’s the end game for this?”

“At some point, that’s a fair question,” said Jason Leahy, executive director of the Illinois Principals Association. He added that some schools are sending students home because they don’t have rapid tests on hand. But then students are absent while waiting for results of PCR tests.

“COVID is not going away. We have to figure out how to live with it,” he said. “We need the CDC to step up and give an idea of what that would be.”