Mark Ornstein of Detroit | What Multi-Campus Oversight Actually Looks Like Day to Day

Mark Ornstein of Detroit

A superintendent's inbox gets a message at 6:47 AM. The furnace at Lincoln Middle School isn't responding. By 7:15, the director of facilities has checked the building. By 7:45, it's determined that Lincoln will run cold but won't close. By 8:30, the director has called every principal whose buses feed Lincoln, sent a message to staff, and made note to get bids for repairs. That's not a crisis. That's Tuesday.

Managing 27 schools isn't about grand strategy. It's about systems that catch problems before they become emergencies, and communication patterns that work the same way whether you're in building one or building twenty-seven. Mark Ornstein of Detroit runs this operation, and the machinery only works if every principal knows what they need to know before they need to know it.

People think central office is about control. The real job is triage.

You can't visit 27 schools on the same day. So you don't.

Reports are information going up the chain. They're not insight. A principal can tell you that they've had three staff resignations this year. That tells you nothing about whether the school is bleeding people because of one toxic grade-level team or because the principal is burning everyone out. You need to walk into the building. You need to talk to a few teachers off the record. You need to sit in a department meeting and see if people are still laughing or if they've gone silent.

That's why Ornstein's schedule isn't random. He's in a different school every week. Not announced. Not a dog-and-pony show. Just showing up, walking hallways, talking to people about what's actually happening in the building. It takes time. It can't scale past 27. And it's the only thing that keeps you from being blindsided by problems that were visible to everyone except the person getting the email summary.

The principal you visit isn't the principal who gets audited next month

Visibility does two things. It tells leadership what's real. It also tells principals that someone's actually paying attention. Not in a punitive way. In a "I know you're working and I've got your back" way. A principal managing a staff reduction knows the central office saw them do it competently. A principal who improved attendance by five points this year got noticed by someone who doesn't just read the data. That matters more than people admit.

But it also means Ornstein has to catch things that aren't yet on paper. A building where morale is cracking. A principal who's in over their head. A department with real infrastructure problems that nobody's reported yet because the culture is "we manage with what we have." Those observations change what help you send and when.

Daily communication isn't about volume. It's about being accessible.

A principal with an immediate problem doesn't wait for the monthly cabinet meeting. They need to know they can call or text and get a response the same day. And they need to know that Ornstein won't bounce them to an associate superintendent or make them fill out a form. That accessibility costs time. But it also prevents small problems from becoming big ones, because people don't let them fester.

Twenty-seven schools generate different kinds of problems every single day. Some need budget flexibility. Some need personnel support. Some need the superintendent to have a conversation with a parent. Some need someone from central office to sit in a building all day and just help the principal think through what's happening. The system only works if the superintendent is actually available to do those things instead of trapped in budget cycles and board prep.

The tension between central control and school autonomy isn't something you solve. It's something you manage every single day.

Every principal wants authority. Every superintendent needs consistency. These aren't compatible things, and pretending they are is how systems develop cultures where each school does things completely differently and nobody knows why.

Staffing is the pressure point. A central hiring system is more efficient but less flexible. School-level hiring is responsive but creates inequity. Budget autonomy is empowering but leads to some schools running lean while others waste. Ornstein's answer isn't to pick a side. It's to have rules that are clear and consistent, but flexible enough that a principal can say "this hire is different than normal and here's why."

That's harder work than just centralizing. It requires relationships, judgment calls, and the willingness to let a principal take a risk if the reasoning is sound. But it's the only way a system of 27 schools stays coherent without feeling like a dictate from above.