A Ph.D. candidate named Vergil Kenneth Ort once wrote a 250-page dissertation on The Role of the School Superintendent’s Wife. The ideal, Ort wrote, is a woman who “is able to meet and entertain … keeps (her) family presentable … provides (a) wholesome family life … has constructive interests and is a good listener.” Ort can be forgiven for assuming that a superintendent would be a man. He wrote his paper in 1955, when men could aspire to be doctors, lawyers, business leaders or school superintendents, while women were expected to be homemakers and could aspire to careers secondary to their spouses’ — nurse, secretary or teachers. That list almost never included superintendent.

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