Women, minorities see barriers to schools’ top job
It has been “difficult” being a school superintendent who is female and African-American, said the departing leader of Reynoldsburg City Schools.
Without getting into specifics — she can’t because of a legal settlement she signed with the school district — Superintendent Tina Thomas-Manning, whose contract expires July 31, bemoaned by email the lack of diversity among the ranks of education leaders.
“How many female superintendents do we have in central Ohio?” Thomas-Manning wrote. “How many African-Americans? How many female African-Americans? I find this to be particularly troublesome due to the fact that education is a female-dominated profession. Brass tacks, we haven’t progressed as far as we would like to believe.”
In April, Thomas-Manning filed an federal employment complaint against the Reynoldsburg schools alleging gender and race discrimination and retaliation.
Statewide, the numbers hint at a glass ceiling in school district central offices.
At the classroom level, where superintendents start their careers, 75 percent of teachers are women, which matches the national figure. But fewer than 16 percent of Ohio superintendents are women, according to Ohio Department of Education data. Women make up around 25 percent of superintendents nationally.
Of 18 school districts in and around Franklin County, two district superintendents are women, and both are leaving their positions this summer: Thomas-Manning and Pickerington Superintendent Valerie Browning-Thompson, who is retiring July 10.
Kimberly P. Miller will be the lone female superintendent in Franklin County when she officially starts at Bexley schools Aug. 1.
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