Every community can point to moments when a superintendent’s leadership changed the trajectory of its schools. Families might not always closely follow board debates or budget allocations, but they know when classrooms feel different—when teachers are energized, when students are thriving, when hope takes root. And those shifts are rarely accidental. Most often, they trace back to system-level leadership.
As former superintendents, we carried that responsibility every day. Leading districts in Texas, Utah and California meant making decisions that reached tens of thousands of students, navigating politics and policy while keeping our eyes fixed on what mattered most: whether every student walked into a classroom where they were challenged, supported, and believed in. The role was complex and, at times, overwhelming, but it was also a profound privilege.
Superintendents hold one of the most consequential positions in public education. They set the tone for entire systems, signaling whether principals are supported, whether teachers feel empowered to innovate, and whether students experience schools as places where they belong and can achieve. In especially large and complex districts, that influence is exponentially magnified.
What It Looks Like to SHINE
Today, The Leadership Academy is sharing its Superintendent Actions That SHINE, a role-specific application of the SHINE Leadership Framework. These actions describe what it looks like for superintendents to be Student-Centered, to set and hold High Expectations, to be Innovative, Nurturing, and Engaged in their daily work. These actions give superintendents a clear path for turning vision into practice and aligning entire systems around student success.
From our own time in the superintendency, two actions in particular resonate with us. They capture the kinds of decisions and commitments that make the difference between systems that stall and systems that flourish.
Hector’s Perspective: Setting Ambitious Goals
As I think about demonstrating high expectations through setting ambitious academic goals for student achievement, I’m reminded of the power those goals carried in my own districts. When I set clear expectations for what students could achieve, those goals became more than numbers on a page and instead created coherence across schools. They gave principals and teachers a shared destination, and they sent a signal to students and families that we believed in their potential. I saw firsthand that when expectations were clear and consistent, progress followed not just in test scores but in the confidence of entire communities. Most importantly, for ambitious goals to be implemented and be sustained, they must be supported with robust professional development, ongoing coaching, and the resources educators need to bring them to life.
Darline’s Perspective: Defining Instructional Quality
For me, being an engaged leader by unifying the school system around a shared definition of instructional quality has always started with relationships. Too often, I saw how every school had its own version of what “good teaching” looked like. Without a shared definition, professional learning was fragmented, and students’ experiences varied depending on their zip code. By building trust and fostering a culture of care, I worked with principals, teachers, and families to create a clear, research-based understanding of effective instruction that people felt ownership of. That process built consistency and rigor across the system while also growing the capacity of others to lead. Students benefited not just from pockets of excellence, but from a culture of excellence sustained by shared purpose and collective leadership.
These actions may sound straightforward on paper, but superintendents know the reality: they demand courage, persistence, and the ability to bring people together across differences. They require leaders to balance urgency with patience, to innovate while maintaining stability, and to stay deeply engaged with communities that rightly expect results.
The Promise of the Superintendency
Though our vantage point has shifted as we now spend our time teaching, mentoring, and advising leaders around the world, we remain convinced of the unique power of the superintendent. No other role has the same ability to align vision, resources, and people in service of students. The Superintendent Actions That SHINE offer today’s leaders clarity amid complexity, helping them connect their choices at the system level to the experiences students have in classrooms.
We’ve witnessed struggling schools become places of pride, students once counted out achieve beyond expectations, and families renew their trust in public education. None of this happened by accident. It happened because superintendents made deliberate choices to set ambitious goals, to establish coherence around instruction, and to lead with conviction that every child could succeed.
The promise of the role is the power to shape systems that create transformational schools. Our hope is that today’s superintendents will use these actions as both a compass and a catalyst: a compass to keep their focus on what matters most—students—and a catalyst to ensure schools become places where every child has the chance to shine.
Dr. Hector Montenegro & Dr. Darline Robles are members of The Leadership Academy’s board of directors and both are former superintendents.
Dr. Montenegro is President and CEO of Montenegro Consulting Group, where he advises school districts across the U.S. and internationally on leadership development, social and emotional learning, and strategies for multilingual learners. He served as superintendent of schools in San Marcos, Ysleta, and Arlington, Texas, and held senior leadership roles with school districts in Washington, D.C., Dallas, Austin, and San Diego. He is a founding member of the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents (ALAS). See his full bio here.
Dr. Darline Robles is Professor of Clinical Education and Associate Dean at USC’s Rossier School of Education. She served as superintendent for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, Salt Lake City School District, and Montebello Unified School District, leading for more than twenty years. She was twice named one of the “Top 100 Influential Hispanic Americans” by the Hispanic Business Journal and served on the Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics during the Obama Administration. See her full bio here.