I found Mt. Pleasant superintendent Alfred Lodovico relaxing on a chair just outside a conference room. He had just finished attending a seminar on “identifying and developing aspiring administrators”—in other words, it was about convincing teachers to give up their 186-day work year to become administrators.

Lodovico said generally, that’s not easy. Besides the difference in work hours—administrators are at their jobs year-round—Lodovico said that another issue keeping teachers from climbing the administrative ladder is the salaries. When you compare salaries to time spent on the job, he said, some teachers actually earn more than their administrative superiors (on an hourly basis, anyway.)

Speakers at the seminar suggested using internships to draw more teachers to administrative positions. As Lodovico explained it, teachers can get their feet wet in (paid) administrative internships for a year. If they like it and decide that administrative work is for them, they get a leg up when it comes to applying to admin positions in their district. If they don’t like it, they can go back to their teaching positions, no harm, no foul.

Lodovico said he’ll be discussing bringing administrative internships to Mt. Pleasant with the district’s school board.

“When you like (your experience) as an administrator, the emphasis on money diminishes somewhat,” Lodovico said with a smile. “That’s the trick.”