Personal account of her first-year experience as superintendent of the Riverdale Joint Unified School District, a large rural district in San Joaquin Valley of California. (PKP)

Describes early-buyout severance plans for school employees. (PKP)

Provides some tips for administrators desiring to acquire videodisk systems for their school districts. Districts need board support, a solid plan, a designated laser disk expert, and a workable evaluation process to measure progress. (MLH)

Advises superintendents to incorporate the best elements of recent budget concepts into annual budgets and to prepare adequately for budget hearings. Lists prerequisites of successful budeting and provides a checklist for evaluating local school budgets. (MLH)

Review of research on superintendent turnover finds that median tenure between 1990 and 1994 was 6.5 years; turnover has not increased significantly since 1975; turnover is related to the school-district enrollment size; turnover is not related to a district's location, that is rural, small town, suburban, urban. Concludes that the superintendency…

Describes how one school superintendent started a book discussion group to provide his leadership team with an opportunity to read, review, and discuss books dealing with contemporary educational issues. Identifies some benefits for professional growth and organizational improvement. (PKP)

Describes how to assess and manage student threats. Includes a set of questions administrators should ask to help them assess threats. (PKP)

Describes the school food service industry, providing 27 million meals daily in 89,000 schools, as second only to McDonald's in size. Offers advice for developing a superior, cooperative business venture. Focus must be on visible managers, high quality staff, clearly communicated objectives, and customer satisfaction. (MLH)

Outlines the strengths of "adaptive education." Points out that the current educational system needs to be totally restructured and that this can be done through collegiality, collaborative effort, and adaptive education. (MD)

Describes a computer art program in a South Carolina school district that helps students become computer literate through the use of computer graphics. (MD)

Outlines eight principles used in private business that can be adapted and used to improve education. Includes illustrated adaptations of the principles. (MD)

Recent research has studied superintendents who survive in high-risk periods, those years in a school district when the odds of superintendent involuntary turnover are the highest. In this article several long-term superintendents are interviewed and their survival and conflict management skills shared. (WD)

Reports the results of the 1980-81 American Association of School Administrators' (AASA) Status and Opinion Survey. The annual survey queries AASA members about their school districts and major problems and seeks their opinions about AASA, its governance, and its services to the profession. (Author/WD)

Describes innovative service-delivery model in Illinois known as the Flexible Service Delivery System, the goal of which is to shift the focus from categorizing and labeling children with disabilities to a system that provides necessary modifications and adaptations to make more children successful in general education. (Author/PKP)

Essay addresses three questions: What purposes should schools serve and who should determine those purposes? Who should set performance goals for schools? Does school choice comport schooling mission to serve the public interest? Argues for need to be more disciplined and explicit in determining the public interest that schools serve and how that…