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Barbara Jenkins, a former superintendent of Orange County in Florida, will lead a project to increase the number of women running school systems, a number that remains stubbornly low even though the workforce is predominantly female.
Jenkins, Orange County’s first female superintendent who left this summer, said the Women in Leadership Initiative at Chiefs for Change, a bipartisan organization that focuses on education leadership at the state and district levels, aims to help future female superintendents to find jobs and stay in them.
“Historically, we believe there have been women who are capable of doing the work who in some cases have not been given the opportunity to do the work,” Jenkins said. “We would like them to be given the same fair chance as others.” It is no different than other sectors. There are still gender inequalities and biases that we face as women in this country – whether it’s inequities in pay or inequities in position. I think we have to face it realistically to do something about it.”
Women make up the majority of teachers, principals and central office staff, but only about a quarter of principals are women. Pre-pandemic gains appear to be waning, said Jenkins, who led Orange County with 206,000 students for a decade before stepping down this year.
A recent study by the ILO Group, a women-owned organization that advises school districts, found that women are not landing as many of the highest district leadership positions during the pandemic as their male counterparts. In a review of the top 500 districts that announced in 2021 that they would get new chiefs, the ILO found that men were elected in 16 of the 17 cases when the positions were filled.
“There’s something out of balance if it’s good that women are the majority of teachers and women are a good percentage of principals, and [have some representation] at the district leadership level and then when you get to that last step, there seems to be a glass ceiling that keeps women out,” Jenkins said.
Hands-on instruction combined with mentorship
How does the Women in Leadership initiative plan to increase the number of women in leadership?
Through training and mentoring to help women find work, but also by emphasizing practical training to prepare them for their interviews and to deal with difficult workplace issues. Practical help can include helping to provide background on the area — history, financial issues and current challenges, for example — where women are applying and interviewing.
Chiefs for Change now runs a Future Chief program that selects a group of aspiring state and district leaders to prepare them for the next step. The Women in Leadership Initiative will add an additional layer of support for women in the Future Chiefs program, Jenkins said.
“I don’t want our young men to think that we don’t empathize with their situation as well, because the job is harder today than it was 10 years ago,” Jenkins said. “Our Future Chiefs program supports all of our employees. We just believe there’s an extra challenge for women in leadership, and so there’s an extra layer, an extra padding and an extra net, if you will, to support our women to aspire to work.”
Practical topics include areas that are often challenging for supervisors – both male and female.
“If you don’t work around [school] relationship on the board, you will not succeed in the job,” she said. “If you’re not working around community relations and community and stakeholder engagement, you’re not going to be successful at work. So we have to deal with these topics.
“You have to have a very clear marketing plan,” she said. “You have to have a very clear focus on public relations in the district so that you can get support from your community if you want your school system to be successful. Then, of course, you have to have a curriculum that’s based on research and practice that will help raise student achievement, or you’re out of business.”
Women get a lot of cues that they’re not part of the inner circle when the names floating around in chief searches are often men, she said. It also takes some effort to convince women they’re ready for the next step, Jenkins said.
Jenkins’ former boss, then-Orange County Superintendent Ronald Blocker, convinced her when she was deputy chief that she was ready for the job, and in the final years of his supervision gave her on-the-job training opportunities. Jenkins’ deputy in Orange County, Maria Vazquez, the district’s first Hispanic, was also Jenkins’ deputy.
“The mentoring, the training, the preparation — that’s what we’re trying to do in both our future leaders and our women in leadership efforts — is to build the confidence as well as the skill level for that first chair,” Jenkins said .
Work management
There is also a self-care component aimed at women, who are often the primary caregivers at home and must juggle work and personal responsibilities.
“We talk very openly about it and help give them strategies for both maneuvering through these trying times … and strategies for how to avoid failure,” she said.
The “sisterly” nature of the initiative, where women can empathize, is also helpful, she said.
“The power of women coming together so they can both think through the issues they face and support and encourage each other is incredibly powerful,” Jenkins said.
Women in the network will also have access to other district leaders who can guide them through workplace challenges that the leaders have first-hand experience and expertise in, Jenkins said.
In addition to Jenkins, coaches and mentors include well-known district leaders such as Susana Cordova, former Denver superintendent; Sharon Contreras, former governor of Guilford County, North Carolina; and Janice Jackson, a former Chicago superintendent.
“Having someone who is more experienced who can walk you through it and talk you through it is extremely helpful,” Jenkins said.
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