Greenfield School Department ranks No. 1 in study on female leadership

Greenfield Recorder
By Mary Byrne
November 12, 2021

GREENFIELD — Out of 180 school districts with more than 1,500 students, the Greenfield School Department ranked No. 1 in representation of women at the administrative level.

The report, released by the Boston-based Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy, was based on a scoring system that factored in whether a district has had a female superintendent in the last 10 years, as well as percentages of female principals in the district and the makeup of the district’s school board.

The report notes that the gender analyses for the study included only male and female categorizations, given limitations in accessing data on nonbinary and transgender individuals in publicly reported data systems.

Greenfield, the only Franklin County school district included in the report, received 100 points, compared to runner-up Lincoln-Sudbury with a score of 94.3 points.

“It’s pretty fascinating,” said School Committee Chair Amy Proietti. “We rocked it.”

With the recent hiring of Superintendent Christine DeBarge, the Greenfield School Department is marking 13 years of having superintendents who are women.