In Kansas City and Minneapolis, where black superintendents oversee districts with large minority student populations, school officials also emphasize the administrators' abilities rather than their race. Minneapolis school officials commend Johnson's expertise as an educator. Kansas City board president John Rios said Demps' organizational skills were just what that district needed to straighten out a central administration mired in patronage and confusion. He has worked out very well. In fact, Hal Seamon, deputy executive director of the National School Boards Association, says it is a superintendent's strength as leader in the face of performance expectations and political pressures that tends to capture the attention and admiration of the public, along with much-desired academic improvements.
Every district has different expectations.
One may be looking for financial management. But what's changed is that districts today are really looking for leadership from the superintendent.