The first time Gail McKinzie’s career interested the media, it was because she had been hired as a high school assistant principal and she was — oh my! — a woman.
Two decades later, the press again became interested in her, but this time only as superintendent of the most expensive new high school in Illinois history. The fact that she is a woman was never discussed.
There was so much that was more newsworthy: Naperville’s Neuqua Valley High School opened last fall as a high-tech marvel. News reports touted the television monitor in every classroom to display daily announcements and show computer-controlled videos to supplement lectures.
In January, a national curriculum organization chose Neuqua as one of eight schools in the country that exemplify a positive atmosphere. In March, Jesse Jackson used Neuqua as an example of educational opportunity, bringing busloads of inner-city students there as part a Rainbow PUSH Action Network program to highlight education gaps in Illinois.
Three women (McKinzie, 51, principal Kathryn Birkett, 41, and athletic director Barbara Barrows, 38) run Neuqua Valley, the state’s most technologically advanced high school, and the school often makes news, but the gender of its leaders hasn’t been the story.
The message, they say, is that even though only 10 percent of the school superintendents in the state (7 percent of superintendents nationwide) are women and only 20 percent of Illinois public high school principals are women and only 5-10 percent of the athletic directors of Illinois high schools are women, the fact that all three of these positions are held by women at Neuqua Valley hasn’t been an issue.
Except in jest.
When Indian Prairie District 204’s Board of Education hired McKinzie in 1996, one of the first things she did was help the Naperville/Aurora school board hire Birkett.
One of the first things Birkett did was to hire Barrows.
There were comments.
“We heard good-natured teasing, but it wasn’t focused on later. It may mean that we’ve made good strides,” said Birkett.
Indeed, the stories behind how these three women arrived at their positions is a mini-timeline of changes in the professional lives of American women.
When McKinzie went back to college in 1975 for an additional degree in curriculum instruction and administation at Iowa State University, there were no other women in her department.
“If you wanted to see a female, you had to go to the Home Ec Department,” said McKinzie, a Missiouri farm girl and graduate of an all-girl Catholic school. She said her father wanted her to major in home economics and her mother wanted her to be a secretary.
McKinzie married at the age of 17 and had a baby two years later. With baby-sitting help from her mother-in-law, McKinzie attended Northwest Missouri State and worked two jobs.
When she was hired in 1976 by a North Kansas City school district, she caused a stir as the only female assistant principal at the high school.
McKinzie knew she wanted to be a superintendent but didn’t know any women in that position. In the mid-’80s, she began attending conferences for women administrators held by the American Association of School Administrators.
“I listened and soaked up what they said. I knew I could do this, I just had to figure out how. They talked about how you can crack the system. AASA gave validity to what I wanted to do and it gave me that hope,” McKinzie said of a time when many boards of education wouldn’t even interview a woman.
After 13 years and subsequent experience as an assistant superintendent and a high school principal, McKinzie was hired in 1989 as superintendent in Lee’s Summit, Mo., and then in 1996, at Indian Prairie, where her gender was a non-issue.
“These days, particularly suburban school boards don’t get too hung up on whether you’re male or female,” said McKinzie. “And there’s so much more opportunity for women in all fields, it’s not the same thinking as 20 years ago.”
Years ago, when she was a high school principal, students would ask her, “How did you do it? How did you manage all of this?” She doesn’t spend as much time with students anymore, but she’s still a role model for people such as Birkett.
Birkett has spent her entire career with Indian Prairie, starting as a physical education teacher in 1979 at Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora when it was a junior/senior high school.
She spent 12 years at Waubonsie, eight as a teacher and four as assistant principal, before leaving to open two elementary schools as principal. In her 19 years with the district, she never worked for a woman principal.
When Birkett was named principal of Neuqua Valley, her gender wasn’t pertinent. But mothers of many girls at the school have mentioned to her that they appreciate having wonderful role models for their daughters not only in administration, but also as the heads of the math and science departments.
Birkett stresses that assistant principal Mike Popp is a good role model too.
“We don’t focus on gender. When I hired Barb Barrows, I didn’t see gender as an issue. People asked me, Wasn’t I concerned that we were both females? I said I wasn’t because there are a lot of qualities that aren’t gender-specific that are important to the success of these jobs.”
Three of the women who were Birkett’s assistant principals when she was principal of Reba Steck Elementary are now District 204 elementary school principals themselves. They enthusiastically call Birkett their inspiration.
“She’s an exemplary role model. I’m here because of Kathy Birkett,” said Kathleen Duncan, 42, principal of Patterson Elementary. Duncan was a 1st grade teacher encouraged to go into administration by Birkett. “I never really thought of it as far as, She’s a woman, I’m a woman, I can do it. She just has an innate ability to draw the very best out of those she works with. Maybe subconsciously, her being a woman had something to do with it.”
Hiring a diverse staff is very important, Birkett said, but gender rarely enters the equation.
“Gender is what brought you here, but quality is the major focus in hiring. There are good qualities in administators regardless of gender. But I do take the role model position seriously for the girls as well as the boys. It’s good for them,” said Birkett.
Perhaps still the most surprising place to find a woman is in charge of high school sports. Barrows, like Birkett, has spent her entire career with District 204, starting as a physical education teacher at Waubonsie Valley in 1983 and becoming assistant athletic director there.
Neuqua Valley students don’t seem to find it odd that a woman is in charge of school sports.
“The kids aren’t questioning if you’re a woman or a man. I’d like to think that’s a great jump. The kids don’t see that gender difference. But I’ve had parents look at me funny or hear my voice on the phone and say, `Oh, you’re the athletic director,’ ” said Barrows.
Barrows has wanted to be an athletic director since she was a high school athlete helping out in the athletic director’s office at her school.
“When I said I wanted to go into athletic administration, I’d get questions from my family and friends because it was so different,” said Barrows. “But it was a different style of thinking in the late ’70s, and there were a lot of opportunities.”
Barrows said she expects the number of women athletic directors to grow as more women coaches move up the ranks. She’s in a position to help other women get to where she’s at and hopes to encourage other women to coach by offering child care after school for them.
“I always wanted to be that role model for kids and be part of the change to show that not only men can handle this job, women can too,” said Barrows, who is married and the mother to two boys, 9 and 11.
Before Neuqua Valley opened, its faculty wrote this motto: “Be what you are, but become what you are capable of becoming.” The school is still forming its traditions, but clearly, gender equality will be among them.
“I’d like to think that even though all three of us are women, there’s no big difference,” said Barrows. “We’ll carry out our roles and do what we love to do for kids, and our kids won’t know the difference … but maybe the readers do.”
